Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Swine Fever (Slaughter Policy)

Mr. P. Browne: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will announce the date early in 1963 upon which a compulsory policy for swine fever will be introduced.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) on 18th July, it is too soon for me to give the exact date on which the slaughter policy will be introduced, but it remains my intention that a start should be made early in the New Year.

Mr. Browne: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to bear in mind that it would be of great help to farmers if he could announce well beforehand the date on which the scheme will start? One might suggest that it could be made earlier than he has anticipated in view of the amount of money he will save in respect of slaughter due to fowl pest.

Mr. Soames: As to the question of the date of announcement, I have in mind what my hon. Friend has said. I will announce it as soon as it is fixed.

European Economic Community

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what negotiations he has now had with the European Economic Community concerning British horticulture.

Mr. Soames: A working party of the Conference has considered the problems of horticulture in the United Kingdom and has reported to Ministers who had a short preliminary discussion yesterday.

Mr. Ridley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if the answer is a lemon it will not be good enough, and that this is one of the most important areas of the whole negotiations? Will he use his best endeavours to try to get conditions which will give reasonable security to British growers?

Mr. Soames: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am fully aware how vital it is, both within the negotiations and for the horticultural industry, that we should gat reasonable arrangements.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that there is concern in the horticultural world about the position of the Government? As yet Government spokesmen on this matter have given the impression that they are prepared to go into the European community without any adequate safeguards. When are we likely to know what really are the safeguards the Government wish to have?

Mr. Soames: The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) knows well that these matters are still under negotiation. We have not on any subject within these negotiations made public what is the position of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Peart: The Minister has not answered my question. I asked what really are the safeguards the Government desire? What is the Government's policy on this? I am only afraid that Government spokesmen for agriculture—and, indeed, the Lord Privy Seal—because of a European concept will go in without giving these safeguards. I want to know What they are.

Mr. Soames: The hon. Member asks what is the position of the Government on safeguards for the horticultural industry. I said that that is a vital element within the negotiations. It is part of the negotiations, but we are not making them public.

Mr. Peart: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will issue as a White Paper the text of his statements made at the meeting with Ministers of member States of the European Agricultural Community.

Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal's opening statement was, of course, published as a White Paper, but the detailed discussions which are taking place during the course of the negotiations with the European Economic Community are confidential, and the statements made during them are therefore not published.

Mr. Peart: Is not the Minister aware that the Lord Privy Seal made a statement on Euratom which was very detailed and Chart we have not had from the Minister of Agriculture anything comparable to that statement? Is he now aware that there is a feeling in the country that the Government have been rather lackadaisical about this and that the Lord Privy Seal will give everything away in agriculture and get nothing in return? When are we to have a detailed explanation of the Government's agricultural policy in relation to the Common Market?

Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal made dear after his statement on Monday that he had published White Papers on the opening statement in the negotiations with the E.E.C., the Coal and Iron Community and with Euratom. These are the only published statements, and the proceedings within the negotiations have not been published.

Mr. J. Wells: Can my right hon. Friend give some firm assurance to the horticultural districts, following the current round of negotiations, because those districts are very worried and would like a clear exposition?

Mr. Soames: The Government's position is as it has been set out all the way along. We have not been able as yet to come to a final agreement with the E.E.C. countries and we are in the process of negotiation. We had another meeting yesterday and there will be further meetings.

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Lord Privy Seal's statement on agriculture on Monday was very vague? No real assurances have been given as yet to our producers. Is not he aware of the detailed regulations issued by the Community and also the statement issued as recently as yesterday by the Common Market Commis-

sion to set up an agricultural advisory committee? We do not know the Government's view on this. The House is anxious to know what it is.

Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman says that my right hon. Friend's statement on Monday about the position of agriculture was extremely vague. But my right hon. Friend gave a very clear and concise explanation of what had been happening during the week. He was not attempting to set out the Government's position on agriculture as a whole. He was reporting to the House the outcome of the negotiations "in the round" the previous week.

Mr. Fell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is satisfied that, under the terms of the provisional agreement reached on 21st July between Great Britain and the Six on the subject of agriculture, the farming community of Great Britain will be as well served as they are under the present system; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Soames: The provisional agreement reached with the Six on annual reviews and a further assurance for farmers in the Community deals with only a part—albeit an important part— of the arrangements that would affect our farmers if we join the E.E.C. Negotiations on other closely related aspects are still going on. Until it is possible to take an overall view of the whole of the arrangements for agriculture in an enlarged Community, it would be premature to make comparisons with our present system.

Mr. Fell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that practically nobody in the agricultural industry or connected with it is at all happy about the announcement made about the arrangements come to on reviews the other day? When is the farming community of this country to have some real assurance that it will not be irreparably damaged if we enter the Common Market? What plans are being made for agriculture if we do not get in?

Mr. Soames: I disagree profoundly with what my hon. Friend says about the provisional agreement, as he terms it, which was arrived at on 21st July. It concerns only a particular sphere but


a very important sphere to which I believe the House and certainly the agricultural community attach the greatest importance. It is that there should be a continuation of our annual review and also that the Community should adopt the concept of our annual review. This is what has been done in these negotiations. Of course, an annual review is not an end in itself; it is only a means to an end. As I say, there is a lot of work yet to be done on matters which would flow from an annual review.

Mr. Morris: The Minister has just said that an annual review is not an end in itself. When can he give an assurance to British farmers that we will not enter the Common Market on terms which will result in a decrease of the profitability of British agriculture? When can we be given an assessment of how many small farmers will survive if we enter the Common Market?

Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Lord Privy Seal and myself have said time and again that it was essential that we should achieve in these negotiations arrangements which would safeguard the vital interests of agriculture. This we have always said and it is very much in our minds today.

Mr. Turton: Will my right hon. Friend explain one point in the tentative proposal of last Monday? What will be the channel of communication between the British agricultural industry and the European Agricultural Commission if this process of annual review is adopted?

Mr. Soames: To begin with, it will be at national level between the farmers' unions and the Government. When the national review and the Community reviews are being undertaken, there will be discussions between the Commission and representatives of producer interests.

Altaswede Seed

Mr. B. Harrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take action to ensure that Altaswede seed imported into the United Kingdom is stained to make sure that it is not mixed with other home-grown clovers thus spreading the risk of red clover stem eelworm.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): The Seeds Regulations, 1961, require the variety and country of origin of red clover seed to be declared by the seller. We are satisfied that these requirements give the buyer of seeds adequate protection against admixture, and we do not think that the staining of Altaswede seed imported from Canada is necessary for this purpose, or would have any effect upon the incidence of red clover stem eelworm in this country.

Mr. Harrison: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that in Canada and the United States they use a method of staining seed to ensure that infected seed does not get involved with their domestic supplies? Would he not consider, in view of the importance of the export of clover seed from the Eastern Counties, banning all infected seed from coming into the country?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am aware of the regulations in force in Canada. Experience has shown that Altaswede seed is not unsuitable for growing in this country and that it is particularly useful when supplies of home-grown clover seed are short. There are no plant health reasons why this should be stopped at this moment.

Bacon Imports

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, in view of the decline in the quantity of home-produced bacon in the past seven years and the increase in bacon imports by 95,000 tons in the same period, he will now impose a quota on future bacon imports.

Mr. Soames: No, Sir. The home pig producers' return is safeguarded by the Fatstock Guarantee Scheme which relates the guaranteed price of pigs to an annual number of certifications of around 10·5 million. This arrangement was agreed with the farmers' unions in 1961 and takes into account the supply position, the level of home demand and the cost of the deficiency payments to the Exchequer.

Mr. Farr: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the increase of


100,000 tons in the home consumption of bacon pig, which has occurred in the past eight years and which has been met entirely by foreign imports, is a very unsatisfactory position? Could my right hon. Friend advise me how it is possible for bacon producers to reduce their costs and become more competitive if the market is to continue to be swamped with foreign imports?

Mr. Soames: My hon. Friend talks about the market continuing to be swamped with foreign imports, but I am sure he realises that, if we had endeavoured to alter our import-export trading arrangements with other countries in tune with the movement of the pig cycle, this would not have been to the advantage of this country as a major trading nation.

Sir A. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend keep in mind the fact that there is a prospect of another 1 million pigs coming forward at home—this despite the disincentive, because we are running at over 10½ million pigs a year? Would it not be well to have a look at the import side of this bacon picture so that we can have a better balance and can give reasonable encouragement to the home producer?

Mr. Soames: Certainly, within our international obligations and responsibilities. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the national pig herd has increased considerably. Whereas 10·5 million was the figure agreed with the farmers' unions to attract the basic guarantee, it is now upward of 11½ million, about 1 million up on forecast certifications— this despite the disincentive, which has been masked to some extent by the amount of the feed formula which has an important part to play. We shall have to look at the whole question at the next review.

Mr. P. Browne: Does not this show that the moment the Government apply a disincentive in one direction they are bound to get increased production in another? The disincentive with respect to milk last year has now resulted in an increased pig herd. What is my right hon. Friend going to do about it?

Mr. Soames: I do not believe that is the case so far as the pig herd is concerned. We have endeavoured through

the flexible price guarantee to have some effect upon the large rises and falls in the pig herd, and I still believe that the basic thought behind the flexible guarantee could make a considerable contribution towards this. The movements in price at the different levels of production have not been sufficient to act as a disincentive.

White Fish Authority and Herring Industry Board

Mr. Jeger: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he proposes to increase the membership of the White Fish Authority and the Herring Industry Board.

Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I are considering the future composition of these two bodies, including the possibility of varying the number of members, and we will make an announcement well before the end of this year, when the appointments of all but one of the present members expire.

Mr. Jeger: Would the right hon. Gentleman give a little urgency to this matter, in view of the fact that the record of these bodies in the past in connection with labour relations is not too good and they obviously need a specialist in dealing with the trade unions and their own workers?

Mr. Soames: I take note of what the hon. Gentleman says. I believe that these bodies have contributed beneficially to the fishing industry as a whole; but, as I say, I will make an announcement in the fulness of time on the new membership.

Wood Pigeons

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, to combat the menace of wood pigeons, he will take steps to make cartridges available at reduced prices to recognised individual expert shots operating on a country-wide basis.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: No, Sir. Grants towards the cost of cartridges for shooting wood pigeons are available to rabbit clearance societies, who may provide cartridges for recognised shots if they wish.

Mr. Farr: Is my hon. Friend aware that whilst it may seem very satisfactory on paper, it is not working out in practice? Is he further aware that I know the name of one expert wood pigeon shot who has killed over 100,000 wood pigeons but who has now given up because he finds that to continue under the present scheme he would have to join no fewer than forty of these rabbit clearance societies?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: It is not necessary to join the societies. One only has to be recognised by them. If the gentleman to whom my hon. Friend refers was a recognised shot, my Department could arrange for him to get these cartridges with the minimum amount of difficulty. I think the gentleman concerned might well come into this category.

Mr. Hilton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the wood pigeon in Norfolk is one of the worst of several pests that we have on our farms and that it does tremendous damage? If he cannot agree to the suggestion made by his hon. Friend, will he at least ask his right hon. Friend to give careful consideration to the proposals in the letter which I sent to him a couple of days ago from the Norfolk branch of the National Farmers' Union for dealing with these pests?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am aware of the damage done by wood pigeons, and everything possible is being done to eradicate them.

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of the increasing damage to farm and garden crops by wood pigeons in recent years, he will consult the National Farmers' Union, ornithologists and pest destruction experts on further measures which might be taken to reduce their numbers.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: We are aware of the increasing amount of damage being done by wood pigeons. The Ministry is in constant consultation with the interests to which my hon. Friend refers, and with the Advisory Council on Rabbits and other Land Pests, on further measures to reduce the number of wood pigeons.

Sir A. Hurd: In addition to what we are achieving at present, could not more be achieved possibly by the giving of some sort of tranquiliser to the pigeons so that they could be caught more easily on the ground?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I shall give thought to that suggestion.

Fowl Pest, Norfolk

Mr. Hilton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state, to the nearest convenient date, the number of poultry slaughtered as a result of the present outbreak of fowl pest in Norfolk; how many of these were ducks, turkeys and chickens, respectively; what was the amount paid out in compensation; what new measures are being taken to combat the outbreak; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Infected area restrictions controlling the movement of poultry into, out of, and within central and eastern Norfolk have been in force since 30th March. From then until mid-July, 411 outbreaks were confirmed in Norfolk, involving the slaughter of nearly 1½ million infected and contact birds. Of these approximately 1,200,000 were chickens, 231,000 turkeys, 16,000 ducks, 3,000 other birds including geese and pheasants. The total compensation for these birds is estimated at about £1¼ million.
Regarding future policy I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made by my right hon. Friend on 18th July in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd).

Mr. Hilton: While thanking the Parliamentary Secretary for that lengthy reply, may I ask him if he is aware that the number of poultry of all sorts involved in this most recent outbreak in Norfolk and the resultant cost are of great concern to us all? As to the statement which was issued by his right hon. Friend a few days ago, is the hon. Gentleman aware that most people in Norfolk, and especially the farmers who have been in the poultry trade for nearly fifty years and have never suffered from fowl pest, will welcome the new proposal that slaughter and compensation should stop, but will the hon. Gentleman make doubly sure that adequate


supplies of vaccine are made available as soon as possible at reasonable prices for poultry keepers?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Yes, we will.

Meat (Prices)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the continuing high prices of meat and the failure of the predicted increase in summer supplies to materialise, if he will make a statement on the present position and the prospects for the next three months.

Mr. Soames: As I explained to the House on 2nd July, I expect that during the later summer months there will be a considerable increase in the number of cattle and sheep coming on the market and that this will be reflected in price movements both at wholesale and retail level. The poor spring and late grass season this year have retarded marketings, particularly in the case of sheep and so tended to keep up prices in the late spring and early summer.
Marketings of pigs have been higher than a year ago and prices have been substantially lower both at wholesale and retail level.

Mr. Dodds: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when he made that statement he implied that the butchers were to blame for the high prices when, in fact, the wholesale prices were going sky-high? Is he further aware that last week the president of the National Federation of Meat Traders' Associations accused the Minister of sheer electioneering for the by-elections and of hoodwinking the housewife by that statement? Since none of us in this House believes that the right hon. Gentleman would descend to such sordid practices, will he make a statement denouncing that suggestion of the Federation?

Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman has completely misinterpreted what I said. The statement to which he refers was made in May and not in July. I said that we saw a considerable increase in marketings during the summer months, that at the moment prices were high in the wholesale markets, that we envisaged these prices would fall when the cattle came forward in greater numbers and

we expected the fall in wholesale prices to be reflected in a fall in retail prices in the shops.

Mr. Darling: As I understand that the Minister has now been converted to the view that he cannot operate a deficiency payments scheme satisfactorily in a free market, and as there are obvious dangers in prophesying price movements, will he undertake to publish a price schedule week by week showing what retail prices of meat ought to be, based on the F.M.C. price list, which would be of great benefit?

Mr. Soames: Retail prices vary considerably up and down the country. Wholesale prices are readily available. Significant movements in wholesale prices are frequently recorded in national organs and many people see them.

Mr. Dodds: The Minister talked about a cut in the summer—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must get on.

Holdings

Mr. Hilton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the number of farmers in the United Kingdom in 1939, 1947, 1956, and at the latest convenient date.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As the agricultural returns relate to holdings, it is not possible to give the actual numbers of farmers in these years. The number of holdings in the United Kingdom, excluding holdings in Great Britain consisting solely of rough grazings, was approximately 525,000 both in 1939 and 1947, 512,000 in 1956 and 470,000 in 1961. A large proportion of holdings are worked part-time, and some are worked as distinct units within a single farm business.

Mr. Hilton: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this gradual decline in the number of holdings is causing concern in farming circles, particularly among small farmers who are very apprehensive about their future in view of the possibility of our joining the European Economic Community? Can he give any estimate of the number of small farmers who are likely to go out of business if we join the Common Market,


having regard to the large number in the Six who have already been put out of agriculture?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The amalgamation of smallholdings is inevitable with the growth of modernisation and increased efficiency. This is bound to happen. It is much too soon yet to give an answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Is my hon. Friend able to give the number of farmers included in the total decrease who have been removed from their land because of the spread of towns, new towns and building, or are those figures not available?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I have not those figures available at present, but I will look into the matter for my hon. Friend.

Mr. C. Hughes: As the decrease has been alarming during the past six years, can the hon. Gentleman give any reasons for it? Does he expect that the decrease will continue at the present rate, and for how long? Also, does he think that a decrease like this is desirable in the interests of British agriculture?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I do not agree that the decrease has been alarming. A decline from 512,000 to 470,000 in just over seven years is not alarming, though it is the trend. The reasons for it I have already given. The hon. Gentleman must realise that in the economic circumstances of the day, expansion, mechanisation and increased efficiency sometimes warrant such a decrease. This is what has been happening.

Potato Acreage

Mr. Peart: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are his proposals to increase the potato acreage for 1962.

Mr. Soames: The 1962 potato crop is already planted.

Mr. Peart: I accept that, but what about the position in 1961–62 and 1962–63 in relation to the future programme, since the Government have through their policy deliberately restricted the acreage?

Mr. Soames: The Question asks about our proposals to increase the potato

acreage for 1962. The hon. Gentleman now asks about 1961 and 1963 as well. I find it hard to understand exactly what he wants by way of information.

Mr. Peart: The Minister knows that the Government's policy was to restrict the potato acreage and that this brought about a shortage which has caused concern in many parts of the country. I want to know, for the next twelve months and beyond, whether it is the Government's intention still to have this restrictionist policy. The Minister can be very clever about it, but he knows the purpose of the question. I ask him to give a straight answer.

Mr. Soames: We had a long debate about this and about the object of the Government and the object of the Potato Marketing Board. This is to use the information which it collects and has available in order to exhort, or the reverse, growers in an endeavour to get an acreage of 750,000 acres or thereabouts each year. Of course, the yield varies tremendously. If one can keep the acreage steady, at least one has a chance, taking one year with another, of coming out roughly with the right amount of potatoes, but with a commodity which varies in yield such as this does one is bound to have wide variations.

Mr. Peart: But is not the Minister aware of the concern which is felt?

Fishing Limit

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has now had from fishing interests and from other sources advocating the extension of the existing three-mile limit off the British coast.

Mr. Soames: In addition to those referred to in my reply of 2nd April, I have received representations from the National Federation of Inland Wholesale Fish Merchants.

Mr. Wall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that inshore fishermen are very concerned about damage to their nets caused by foreign vessels operating just inside or just outside territorial waiters —[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I should be obliged if the House would leave to me


the duty of maintaining order, bearing in mind that a running commentary during Questions creates awkwardnesses for other people in hearing.

Mr. Wall: Is my right hon. Friend aware also that off the Scottish coast there are anomalies which allow foreign vessels to fish where Scottish vessels are not allowed to fish? Could not all these matters be overcome by an extension of the existing three-mile limit?

Mr. Soames: I am aware of the problems which my horn. Friend raises. As he knows, this is a question of what is in the best interests of this country as regards our fishing limit and also of our international obligations in this respect. I am well aware of the case and of the strong feelings of inshore fishermen in this matter. It is something which we have to watch continuously, but, in my view, this would not be an opportune moment to move to extend our fishing limit.

Mr. Hoy: Will the right horn. Gentle-man remember when he is considering this matter that his hon. Friends behind him supported the ban on British fishermen though it was opposed from this side of the House?

Mr. Soames: My hon. Friends are very well aware of the nice balance in this and that there are interests which are in flavour of extending the limit and also that the British Trawlers Federation is anxious that it should not at this time be extended.

Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1923 (Section 9)

Sir E. Errington: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will amend Section 9 of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1923, in so far as it relates to the clearance of coarse fish, as recommended by the Bledisloe Committee.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: My right hon. Friend is at present considering this and other recommendations by the Bledisloe Commiteee, the majority of which, if accepted, would involve amending legislation, but I am not yet able to make a statement.

Sir E. Errington: Does my horn. Friend realise that in Scotland and the Republic

of Ireland there is no such limitation as is imposed by Section 9 of the Act? Does he understand the importance of this to the trout-fishing interests?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I realise the importance of this and I realise that in Scotland the limitation does at present apply. This is one of the points which my right hon. Friend will be considering before he brings proposals before the House.

Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Markets

Mr. Darling: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what technical assistance he is giving to the Horticultural Marketing Council in the preparation of a national plan for regional wholesale fruit and vegetable markets, and for the most efficient designs for such markets.

Mr. Soames: Most wholesale markets are owned by local authorities, and the preparation of a national plan is not one of the functions of the Horticultural Marketing Council, as laid down by the Horticulture Act. But it is prepared to advise on the layout and facilities of individual markets, and such technical assistance as my Department can give is always available to it.

Mr. Darling: Does this mean that the Minister is satisfied with the present position? Has he read the pathetic Report of the Horticultural Marketing Council which makes perfectly clear that we need new wholesale markets in this country? Has he read the Report of the National Farmers' Union committee about the French five-year plan to create a network of wholesale markets in France? Will he realise that, if we are to go into the Common Market, the costly and inefficient marketing arrangements which we have in this country ought to be wiped away and we ought to have better and cheaper markets to offset the increases in prices which will come from entry into the Common Market?

Mr. Soames: I have, of course, seen both of these Reports, and most interesting they are. In this country, since the Runciman Committee recommended that there should not be a central marketing authority but that markets


should be in the hands of local authorities, this has been the policy we have pursued. The hon. Gentleman asks me whether I am satisfied with the situation today. The answer is that no one can be satisfied with the small amount of progress which has been made in modernising markets. This is a matter of the gravest importance for the horticulture industry as a whole, and it is exercising my mind very much at present.

Mr. Peart: What does the Minister intend to do about it—nothing?

Toxic Sprays

Mr. Darling: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the fresh evidence of the dangerous long-term effects of synthetic insecticides and other toxic sprays on birds, animals, fish and human beings, a copy of which has been sent to him, whether he will put in hand an investigation into the claims made by the manufacturers of these sprays, with a view to the introduction of regulations to prohibit the sale of all sprays that are not completely safe and harmless to all animals and fish.

Mr. Soames: I am obliged to the hon. Member for drawing my attention to the recent series of articles in the New Yorker on possible dangers arising from the use of pesticides. These articles do not appear to contain fresh evidence, and I am satisfied that the arrangements we already have in this country for investigating new agricultural pesticides before they are put on the market provide adequate safeguards for human beings and wild life.

Mr. Darling: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the most frightening aspect of these articles is not in the articles themselves but in the expert evidence quoted that the poisons remain in the soil, that persistent and repeated spraying is killing wild life, birds, animals and fish in the streams, and that there is evidence that the poisoned soil is causing diseases in animals which may well be transmitted to human beings? Would he not agree that in these circumstances and in view of the long-term prospects of the continual poisoning, we ought to ban immediately many of these sprays?

Mr. Soames: No, Sir. The technical and scientific advice to me on this matter is that there is nothing new in the way of evidence in those articles that was not already known at the time when the research study group went into the whole question and produced a report which has been accepted both by the medical authorities and by wild life interests in this country.

Mr. Bullard: Will my right hon. Friend keep a sense of balance about this? As well as studying the articles in the New Yorker, will he also pay special attention to the report of the committee to which he has referred and which was presided over by Professor Sanders? Will he not agree that there is nothing particularly healthful in having crops messed on by birds, pigeons, rabbits, and other animals, and that we need to create a paradise for people as well as for pigeons?

Mr. Soames: There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says, and I can assure him that I shall do my best to maintain a sense of balance.

Mr. Darling: Will the Minister bear in mind that much of the expert medical and scientific evidence in America has contradicted its previous views on these sprays and that it is the long-term effect of the sprays which is now causing concern? Although we may not want crops dirtied by birds, we certainly do not want crops which will cause cancer in animals and human beings.

Mr. Soames: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should make too much out of this from the articles that have appeared in a magazine. As he knows, the greatest precautions are taken and no dressing or pesticide is allowed to be used unless it has been tested and passed.

Sir G. Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his approach today, no doubt unwittingly, might be interpreted as being complacent? Does he not recollect that the Estimates Committee last year recommended a full inquiry into the effects of chemicals in industry both on natural life and human life? Does he realise that there is a problem here? Although he may be perfectly right in taking this comforting


attitude will he institute a comprehensive inquiry into a matter that is causing immense anxiety to all interested in natural life and human health?

Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir. I can assure my than. Friend that the most helpful report and recommendations of the Committee to which he has referred have in fact been implemented and that there is constant research going on into this.

Several Hon. Members : rose—

Mr. Speaker: We have dealt with only fourteen questions by four minutes past three. I desire to renew my request to hon. Members to keep supplementary questions short.

Lark-Denver Sluice (Cut-Off Channel)

Mr. Parker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the Government moneys involved, how far work has progressed on the new out from the Lark to Denver sluice; and when he expects it to be completed.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Excellent progress continues to be made on the cut-off channel, and the contractors are well ahead of schedule. At the present rate of progress, and provided no unforeseen difficulties occur, it is expected that the channel will be completed by the end of 1963.

Great Ouse River Board

Mr. Parker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, when making grants available to the Great Ouse River Board for a cut-off-channel and other new works, he will make it a condition that the completed waterways shall be available for use by pleasure craft and barges.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: No, Sir. The managements of the channels constructed under the Great Ouse Flood Protection Scheme is a matter for the river board.

Mr. Parker: In view of the excellent work done by the Thames Conservancy both in improving drainage and boating facilities, could not a directive or lead be given by the Minister to other bodies, like the Great Ouse River Board, to do the same?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The things that have been done by the Thames Conservancy Board will undoubtedly be taken into consideration by river boards in the future.

Defoliating Agents

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take steps to inform farmers, and especially fruit and grain-growers, of the possible effects on their crops of defoliating agents capable of being used in war.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I do not think I can give special advice to farmers about the effects of defoliating agents, nor would this appear to be necessary as there is no serious risk of their being used in war time against this country.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the evidence given to the United States Representative Sub-Committee as long ago as 23rd March, 1961, shows that complete areas can be stripped of leaves and of crops and fruit? Is it not likely that the Soviet Union could also use this, and should not the farming community of this country be fully informed of the possibilities which exist in this respect?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am aware of this United States report. There are considerable difficulties inherent in delivering this kind of poison against this country. When we look at all the dangers today, there are much greater threats than this, but I will consider what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Sir J. Gilmour: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of reports by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Animal Health Branch, that a virulent African type of foot-and-mouth disease is present in Turkey, what special precautions he is taking to ensure this disease is not brought into Great Britain.

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures are to be taken by Britain, in conjunction with other European countries, to safeguard herds and flocks


against the African virus of foot-and-mouth disease which has lately attacked stock in Israel, Syria, Jordan and Turkey.

Mr. Soames: It is of vital importance to us that this disease should not spread through Europe and thus place us at risk. The Director General of F.A.O. and the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease, of which my chief veterinary officer is chairman, have been considering urgently the foot-and-mouth disease situation in the Middle East, and I understand that the Director General intends to make recommendations as to the measures necessary to prevent the spread of the disease into Europe.

Sir A. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that we are not taking any meat into this country from the countries that are so badly infected, because we know that the virus can readily be carried in carcase meat? Will he assure us that Pirbright is working on a virus that may give us some kind of immunity if this disease should spread into Europe?

Mr. Soames: We do not import any uncooked meat from any of the countries in the Middle East or the countries mentioned in the Question. We have traditionally and for a long time had a small established trade with Africa for small quantities of uncooked meat and there is considerable veterinary control and restriction on the movement of that meat. The virus concerned is being worked on and a vaccine is being produced at Pirbright bait it would not be for use in this country if this disease were to come here. It would be by slaughter that we would eradicate it.

Sir J. Gilmour: In view of the fact that the Continent controls foot-and-mouth disease by vaccination and that they do not have a supply of vaccine to control this virus, and that we import meat from Europe, will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that if this disease spreads from Turkey into Europe no meat will be brought into this country?

Mr. Soames: I shall, of course, keep a very close watch on that.

Smallholders, Norfolk

Mr. Fell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total number of smallholders in Norfolk; and what are the numbers of farmers engaged in horticulture in Norfolk, giving separate figures for those engaged full time and for those engaged part time.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As at 31st March, 1961, the number of statutory smallholdings in Norfolk, provided by the County Council, was 1,267, of which 705 were full-time holdings and 562 were part-time holdings. In addition there are 7,000 to 8,000 small farms and holdings owned privately.
Of the total of 12,000 holdings in Norfolk covered by the agricultural censuses, as at June, 1960, some 4,400 grew horticultural crops, some as specialists and many in conjunction with other farm enterprises. I have no information as to how many of these are full time or part time.

Mr. Fell: I thank my hon. Friend for that very full Answer. I will not repeat the question asked earlier today by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells), but may I ask my hon. Friend whether the Government are aware of the great worry among the small farmers, not only in Norfolk but all over the country, about the present negotiations?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am fully aware of the feelings of my hon. Friends and of the small farmers, but I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend has said this afternoon.

Mr. Bullard: In view of the enormous importance of the horticultural section of agriculture in Norfolk generally, will my hon. Friend bear in mind the misgivings which horticulturists have about the negotiations which are going on which seem to involve a temporary arrangement in the transitional period only as regards the future of horticultural policy in Europe? Will he ensure that there is something more permanent than a temporary transitional arrangement?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am sure that my right hon. Friend has heard my hon. Friend's remarks and will bear them in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Polish ex-Regulars (Pensions)

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Minister of Defence whether, in view of the evidence of the increasingly distressing circumstances in which many of the surviving Polish ex-Regulars have been living in the United Kingdom in the last six months, he will now take the necessary steps to ensure that they may receive a military pension.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): There are some difficulties about the solution suggested by the hon. Member, but I am considering whether there is anything more that can be done to help in cases of distress.

Mr. Fletcher: I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment. In view of the protestations on this subject which have been made to the Prime Minister and to others in the past, may we now have some hope that the new Minister will adopt a more liberal and enlightened policy on this subject and will correct what has been a manifest injustice for many years past?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I think that everybody has a good deal of instinctive sympathy for the gallant officers and men who came to help us, but there are difficulties about that particular solution. I have not had time to examine the matter in great detail. I have tried to leave a little chink open so that I may examine it further.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: When considering this matter, will my right hon. Friend have examined very fully the arrangements which the French Government have come to with the present Polish Government about providing the necessary finance to enable a pension as of right to be paid to Polish ex-Service men who live outside Poland?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir. I think that there is a good deal of misunderstanding about what other Governments have done and about what we have done. We have done a great deal for the Poles, but I will examine all these matters.

Nuclear Deterrent

Mr. Longden: asked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement on

the Government's present policy in regard to the independent nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Defence what proposals he now has for strengthening the British nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Thorneycroft: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister stated in the House on 26th June, Her Majesty's Government intend to maintain the British nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Longden: May I also congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment? Is he aware that what people want to know is just how independent our deterrent is. If it is not independent, let us drop the pretence that it is. If it is independent, may we be told clearly Why it is necessary, as I think it is, that we should retain it? Will he tell the people these things in what I might call "home-truths"—that is, in simple, clear, forthright language which everyone can understand?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I shall endeavour to be intelligible.

Mr. Wall: Will my right thon. Friend consider the future generation of nuclear deterrents, and, in so doing, will he give particular consideration to the advantages of the Polaris submarine which at the moment this country does not possess?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Obviously these are all matters which will require consideration, but I cannot deal with all of them in answer to this Question.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Now that the right hon. Gentleman has assumed his new great office, will he consider again with a fresh mind whether it is in the national interest that we should maintain this so-called independent nuclear deterrent? Can he say whether we have been having any talks with America about the cost of Skybolt and whether it is true that the costs which we would have to pay are rising rather alarmingly?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I think that in the case of Skybolt we are getting an independent deterrent a great deal cheaper than we would have done if we had done the development ourselves.

Mr. Wade: May I press the Minister on this question of definition? What exactly does he mean by the "independent nuclear deterrent"? Do Her Majesty's Government seriously contemplate using nuclear weapons independently or even threatening to use them independently? Is not that an out-of-date as well as dangerous concept?

Mr. Thorneycroft: It is hardly for me to try to instruct the hon. Gentleman on the use of English. "Independent" means independent. However, I think that between allies a little more concentration on inter-dependence would not be amiss.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he will not in any way be influenced by the briefings that the members of the Opposition Front Bench get from the Pentagon?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I fully appreciate that.

Mr. M. Foot: While reserving my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask whether he has yet had time to circulate throughout his Department the speech which he delivered on the subject of an independent nuclear deterrent when he was able to speak his mind as a free man from the back benches?

Mr. Thorneycroft: In view of the point made by the hon. Member, I will try to refresh my memory on the subject.

Policy

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement on the present defence policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Thorneycroft: At a convenient opportunity.

Mr. Hughes: May I refresh the right hon. Gentleman's memory? We understood that as Chancellor of the Exchequer he was strongly critical of the heavy expenditure on defence at that time and felt that it contributed to inflation. Is he now prepared to agree to the reduction of Government expenditure on defence, or is he to be the gamekeeper turned poacher?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Tedious though it may be, I recommend the hon. Member to study the whole of my speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer and not just one part of it.

Nuclear Tests

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Defence if he will invite Professor Don Leet to the United Kingdom to discuss with Her Majesty's scientific advisers his method of detecting underground tests.

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. All scientific information on this topic is welcome and no special invitation is needed to secure this end.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the House on 22nd May, the Prime Minister assured me that he would study any evidence made available by Professor Lewis Don Leet and that in response to that, Professor Don Leet wrote to the Prime Minister on 5th June sending the evidence and saying that he would greatly appreciate an opportunity of consultations with British scientists to test his claims but that so far the professor has had only an acknowledgment from the Prime Minister, who has cautiously transferred this Question, which I put down to him? Is it not absurd that when a man of that stature makes an offer to come and collaborate with British scientists, the offer is not accepted with open arms?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Far be it from me to prevent any consultations on this extremely important topic, but Professor Leet, like a great many other scientists in this field, is in consultation with the American Government. We have our own scientists, discussions are going on and there is close contact between us and the American Government. If we all started issuing invitations to one another, I do not think that it would really help.

France (Nuclear Weapon Programme)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Defence if he will end all direct and indirect British assistance to France's nuclear weapon programme.

Mr. Thorneycroft: We have not been asked for, and are not giving, any assistance to France's nuclear weapon programme.

Mr. Allaun: Does not the Minister admit, first, that Rolls-Royce assistance to Mirage vitally helps the French nuclear weapon programme as a whole and, secondly, that the spread of nuclear weapons to other nations greatly increases the danger of war?

Mr. Thorneycroft: In my last post, I made some small contribution to helping to get the Germans, the French and ourselves jointly to develop a vertical lift engine. I considered that a sensible thing and I very much hope that nobody will be opposed to any inter-dependence of that character.

Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister suggesting that trading arrangements come before the matter of peace? That is the implication.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Defence if he will give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will not supply a British guided weapons system for France's projected nuclear missile and will refrain from giving further instruction in low altitude bombing techniques to the French Air Force; and if he will ensure that no official design assistance is afforded to the French Mirage vertical take-off engine.

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir.

Mr. Allaun: Does the Minister deny that Hawker Siddeley is giving the French ballistic missile organisation information based on Blue Water?

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, I do not think so. The hon. Member has an exaggerated idea of what helps the nuclear deterrent. We cannot cut off all contact with France in case any piece of knowledge might be used in that direction.

Mr. Paget: Is not the real trouble that whilst, for largely prestige reasons, we insist upon maintaining independence for ourselves in this field, it is difficult to object to anybody else seeking similar independence and that this may have tragic consequences?

Mr. Thorneycroft: That depends on what the hon. and learned Gentleman means by "object to anybody else". The

French are a nuclear Power for this purpose and also they are our allies in N.A.T.O. We understand their reasons for that.

Mr. M. Foot: Does the Minister consider it a good idea that the French should be an independent nuclear Power?

Mr. Thorneycroft: We fully understand the position of the French in this matter, as they understand ours. I make no criticisms of France.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

Second Sea Lord (Staff)

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty how many are at present employed on the staff and in the office of the Second Sea Lord; and what was the number in 1941.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): Unfortunately mo figures are available for 1941. The nearest date for which a reasonably comprehensive figure is available is 1st April, 1946, when there were 679 persons employed in the Departments under the Second Sea Lord's superintendence, excluding naval ratings, for whom no figure is available. At 1st April, 1962, there were 485 persons employed in these Departments, including 66 naval ratings. There were five persons in the Second Sea Lord's personal office on 1st April, 1946, and five persons on 1st April, 1962.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Whilst appreciating what my hon. Friend has done in an effort to try to reduce these figures, may I ask him to bear in mind that my information is that in 1941 this figure was much lower than it is today and that if the reputation of the Royal Navy and the organisation behind it is to be maintained, it is essential that we get the best value for our money? Will he make all the efforts he can to try to ensure that this is achieved?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: My noble Friend and I have given a solemn undertaking to this House that we will cut the headquarters staff of the Navy 1 per cent. every year for five years. We shall continue to do this. This area is not one which will be immune from that attention.

Helicopters

Commander Courtney: asked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what methods are employed for prevention of deterioration whilst at sea of helicopters installed in frigates and other of Her Majesty's ships.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: Manufacturing specifications take account of the special conditions in which these helicopters have to operate. Once in service, they are stowed in snips' hangars when not in use and additional protective measures are employed such as the de-watering oil process, the washing down of the external surfaces with fresh water, and using sprayed lanolin coatings.

Commander Courtney: Is my hon. Friend aware of the potentialities of a new type of collapsible aluminium hangar which has been developed in this country and which, I understand, is in use in the Royal Canadian Navy?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I was not myself aware of this, but if my hon. and gallant Friend sends me details I should be happy to draw it to the attention of our design authority.

H.M. Submarines "Dreadnought" and "Valiant"

Commander Courtney: asked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty when it is expected that Her Majesty's submarines "Dreadnought" and "Valiant" will become operational with the fleet.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: We hope to commission the "Dreadnought" before the end of this year. She will then require extensive triads, so I cannot forecast with any accuracy when in 1963 she will become operational with our fleet.
The "Valiant" was not laid down until this year. Any forecast so long in advance of the date when she will become operational with the fleet would have no real significance.

Commander Courtney: Is my hon. Friend aware that American nuclear submarines are now being built under the three-shift system, that about sixty are projected and that the latest will be built within a space of two years? Can my hon. Friend tell the House what the Admiralty will do to reduce the appalling time that is taken to build our own nuclear boats?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: The Admiralty and Messrs. Vickers are very anxious to speed up this building to the greatest possible extent. There has been an element of two and even three-shift working since the "Dreadnought" was launched in October, 1960. I might add that we hope that some of the unofficial disputes which have taken place may be lessened when the shipwrights and the boiler makers amalgamate and that then we might not have quite the same trouble over demarcation that we have had in the past.

Mr. Willis: Has any decision been made whether these two submarines are to be followed by other nuclear submarines?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: There is no decision at present.

Mr. Wall: Would my hon. Friend agree that the addition of two hunter-killer submarines is of limited value to our national security, whereas the addition of two Polaris submarines would be of very great value to our national security? Will he look into the matter again?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: That is another question. We must, however, get into the business of nuclear propulsion and these submarines will give us valuable experience, both in building and in training and in the operating of these vessels.

Mr. Speaker: The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day.

Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, you terminated Questions today at 3.29 and 40 seconds—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—20 seconds ahead of schedule, thereby depriving me of the opportunity of asking Question No. 35. [An HON. MEMBER: "The clock had struck."] No, the clock had not struck. My right hon. Friend is quite wrong: it had not struck. We were about 20 seconds ahead of schedule. In those circumstances, Mr. Speaker, could I be allowed the opportunity to ask my Question No. 35?

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Speaker: I regret we were not able to hear the hon. Member asking his Question, but I am afraid that the House has to entrust to me observing and heading what the time is.

First Schedule.—(DISQUALIFICATION AND PENALTIES.)

Amendment made: In page 27, line 30, column 2, at end insert "the words from ' if the court' to ' punishment for the offence' shall be omitted."—[Mr. Marples.]

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 31, line 22, column 1, at the beginning to insert:
25. An offence under section (driving with uncorrected defective eyesight) of this Act (driving with uncorrected defective eyesight or refusing to submit to test).
This Amendment is supplemantary to the Government new Clause—Driving with uncorrected defective eyesight. The addition of these offences to Part II of the First Schedule puts both offences under the new Clause—that is to say, driving without the ability to meet the required eyesight standards and refusal to comply with the request of a police constable to demonstrate that ability to see—auto the category of offences for which the courts will have the discretionary power to disqualify under subsection (2) of Clause 5. They will then count for the "totting-up three in three years" automatic penalty in subsection (3) of Clause 5.

Amendment agreed to.

Third Schedule.—(Minor and Consequential Amendments.)

Mr. Woodhouse: I beg to move, in page 43, line 22, column 2, at the beginning to insert:
in the proviso to subsection (1), for the words 'he produces the same in person ' there shall be substituted the words 'it is produced'".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir W.Anstruther-Gray): This and the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) in page 43, line 22, at the beginning insert:


Section two hundred and twenty-five.


In the proviso to subsection (4) for the words "he produces the licence in person "there shall be substituted the words "the licence is produced".


may be discussed together.

Mr. Woodhouse: This Amendment is in fulfilment of an undertaking given in Committee by my hon. and learned Friend the then Minister of State, Home Department, to take care of a difficulty which is liable to arise in the case of certain commercial firms using large numbers of vehicles and holding block or master certificates covering the whole range of such vehicles, which one could not expect the individual driver would carry in each case.
We are still unable to accept the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) to apply the same principle to driving licences, for reasons which I think were made sufficiently clear in Committee and with which I will not weary the House again. I hope this Amendment will be accetptable.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I am, of course, grateful that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department and his colleagues on the Front Bench have been able to go as far as this in meeting the case which I put forward in Committee. The Amendment will, I am sure, come as a mitigation of the inconvenience which is suffered by many people who have to produce an insurance certificate when it is not on the vehicle at the time when they are asked for it.
I think this is a clear enough case. There is nothing that I need say now to add to the arguments which were deployed in Committee and which have found acceptance in the Amendment now moved. But inasmuch as the Amendment which I have on the Paper is in order for debate on this Government Amendment, I would just like to say—again I am afraid it can only be for the future and for the record—that it is still my view that this concession ought also to be extended to the requirement to produce a licence.
This is the second occasion that I have raised this matter. I raised it in 1956 when the Road Traffic Bill of that year was going through its stages. I do not consider that I was then given any reason why this should not be done. I argued the case again in Standing Committee and had, I think, the support of some hon. Members at any rate, and again I do not consider that I was given any reason why this should not be done. I completely fail to understand why a licence has to be produced within five days at the police station not just by anyone but by the driver in person.
The present rule is supposed to avoid some abuse, but just what the abuse thus avoided can be is beyond my comprehension. It was argued against me in Committee that what I suggest would

impose an extra burden on the police, but, even though I and others asked what. that burden might be, no explanation was given.
Twice during this period of seven years there has been a total failure to put forward any reason why this considerable inconvenience should be inflicted upon a very large number of people. A man driving to London Airport, on his way to a conference or important engagement at the other end of the world, perhaps, may be asked for his driving licence, not because he has committed any traffic offence but because he happens to be a useful witness of something which has happened on the road. Why should he be required to cancel all his plans to go abroad so that within five days he may in person produce this miserable licence at the police station?
It is, of course, important that a driver should have a licence and that it should be produced to show that he has it, but I simply cannot understand why it should not be possible for someone else, perhaps his secretary, to do it. I have always been open to argument and conviction on this matter. One can be wrong. One can overlook something. But it is very odd that in two debates in the space of seven years no one has explained what it is that I have overlooked. I do not want to take up time. Part of what I want has been accepted. I cannot take it further now since my Amendment is not selected for a vote— not that a vote is any good on Report, as one knows only too well. I am grateful for what has been done so far. I say what I do now so that, in seven years from now when we have our next Road Traffic Bill, I may have a reasonable prospect of seeing the remainder of my reasonable request accepted.

Mr. James Dance: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). It is quite ridiculous that one's wife or one's friend may not produce one's driving licence in these circumstances. My hon. Friend gave the example of someone going abroad. I recall that in Committee one hon. Gentleman said that he could be in a very awkward position if, having left his driving licence in his coat pocket in Scotland, he was asked to produce it while on his way to the House. He has five days to


produce it. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that his wife should be permitted to take his licence to the local police station in Scotland and produce it on his behalf.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). If one is going abroad and on one's way to London Airport one is unfortunate enough to be caught speeding—[Hon. Members: "Oh."]—and one is asked for one's licence, one can be put to great inconvenience. Whenever I go abroad I leave things like my driving licence behind, because I do not like to take them with me about the world and risk losing them. A person going abroad, say to Japan, for a fortnight or so has five days in which to produce his licence. He cannot do so. There is a lot of sense in what my hon. Friend has said, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will note it for next time.

Mr. Robert Cooke: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). I am certain that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who is so brilliant at cutting through red tape of all kinds, could find a way round this difficulty. I hope that he will give us an answer.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Woodhouse: I did not argue the point when I spoke a few minutes ago because I thought Chat the House was anxious to make up time and get on with the Bill, and also because I had the impression that the arguments had been fully rehearsed in Committee. Since, however, the matter has been raised again, I should like to make one or two points in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell), and particularly to take up one or two of the points of fact which the asserted in Committee and again tonight.
My hon. Friend asserted in Committee that the regulation was virtually a dead letter. I have taken the trouble to ascertain whether this is so. The fact is that it is not. I have had inquiries made among chief officers of police in many parts of the country and I find that almost all of them, particularly those in charge of the largest

forces—the Metropolitan Police, Lancashire, Birmingham and the West Riding of Yorkshire, for example—say that they normally enforce the requirement that the holder of a licence should present it in person, and they clearly wish that it should remain so.
My hon. Friend said that it does not matter in practice who takes the licence so long as it is correctly associated with the driver. The fact is that this requirement not only enables the police to verify the identity of the driver and serves as a safeguard against impersonation—contempt has been poured on this idea, but it is a serious one—but enables the police to take up on the spot any irregularities associated with the licence itself. This is a convenient and not uncommon advantage.
If my hon. Friend looks at the 1961 return of offences relating to motor vehicles by the Metropolitan Police, he will find that a large number fall in this category, and they bring in a quite considerable sum of money in fines. The Metropolitan Police tell me that as a result of this requirement they have frequently been able to make inquiries on the spot into such offences as driving while disqualified or of learner drivers driving unaccompanied by another driver.

Mr. Dance: I do not follow the argument concerning identification. A motorist might be "had up" in Edinburgh, where he lives, but produce his licence at Chelsea police station. As I said in Committee, unless the person taking the licence is of different sex, no one is to know whether he was the driver. There are no photographs on a driving licence for identification. Anybody could produce the licence.

Mr. Woodhouse: The simple answer is that confirmation can be obtained by the signature. The licence must have a signature on it, and a person can be called upon at the police station to give a signature, when the two can be compared.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Is it not almost unknown for anyone to be asked for a signature? That is one of those metaphysical possibilities which does not happen. Is there the slightest reason


why a matter like driving while disqualified, if it is revealed when a licence is produced, should not be taken up in the ordinary course of events? How is that helped by the actual driver producing the licence? I cannot follow the argument.

Mr. Woodhouse: I was coming to that. I should be grateful if I may be allowed to finish my argument before there are further interruptions.
There are also other offences which can be revealed on the occasion of production of licence, such as taking and driving away somebody else's motor car. The point is that in every such case where an offence is disclosed it is necessary sooner oar later to interview the driver personally. If it can be done sooner rather than Later, that is a convenience in administration and makes the task of the police much easier. These are the reasons why we have felt it necessary to resist my horn. Friend's Amendment, but I hope that the concession which we have made in the Government Amendment, which at least gives my hon. Friend half a loaf, will be welcome to him as better than no bread.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Will my hon. Friend take it from me that on the last three occasions I have been asked to produce my licence at police stations I was not asked to sign anything at all?

Mr. Woodhouse: There was no reason in practice why my Friend should have been, unless there was any suspicion of impersonation. Quite clearly, my hon. Friend has not been brought to one of the police stations where they do normally require this production.

Mr. A. R. Wise: I have just checked back on my own licences. My current one is signed, but three have no signature.

Mr. Woodhouse: I am sorry to say that my hon. Friend is convicting himself of an offence under the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Fourth Schedule.—(Enactments REPEALED.)

Amendments made: In page 47, line 38, at end insert:
In section one hundred and ten, the words from 'if the court' to 'punishment for the offence'.".

In page 48, leave out lines 9 to 18.

In page 48, leave out lines 24 to 28.— [Mr. Marples.]

Order for Third Reading read.

[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Marples: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
At this late hour, and after some confessions from my hon. Friends on this side about not signing their licences and going to London Airport and on to Japan, with all the difficulties which are consequential upon that, there is very little time to go over the merits of this Bill, and I do not propose to do so. What I should like to do is however thank both sides of the House for the way in which they have discussed this Bill both on the Floor of the House and in Committee upstairs.
I think I can say quite honestly that the discussions have been full and comprehensive. Everybody has made his point of view crystal clear. We have not always agreed, but at any rate views have been expressed reasonably concisely. People have had strong views. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) had strong views. They have been opposed sometimes to those on the Front Bench —as have some expressed from this side. I do not complain about that. Everybody dealing with the Bill has, in my view, tried his best to make this a good Bill. Naturally, as the Minister in charge of the Bill, and as I have not got the whole of my own way, modestly I am sorry about that, because I think my own way would have been better than the way imposed upon me by various pressures from all sides. However, that is our democratic way of procedure.
I think, broadly speaking, this is a good Bill, and I would say to the House this, that politics is the art of the possible and we have to get through as much as we possibly can; but I do not want the House to understimate the importance of this Bill, because it does deal with road safety, and that is the most difficult problem every civilised country in this world faces today. We are killing nearly 7,000 people a year,


and that is serious, and the more we can do as the legislative assembly to reduce those deaths and the accidents the better.
I think this House must not underestimate either the number of people who do not make their views known and who are intensely interested in reducing the deaths on the roads. I have a vast volume of correspondence which is analyses regularly, and I can assure the House that it is amazing how many people are interested but who do not make their views known as a pressure group because they are diffused over the country as a whole.
My correspondence shows this clearly. Only two days ago I got a letter from a man who wrote:
I am sending you the enclosed driving licence to use if possible in your road safety campaign. My reason for giving up driving is that I am 58 and suffering a slight heart trouble. So after half a lifetime of driving to every corner of this land I do not want the very pleasant memories spoilt by hurting some one in an accident. Please do not publish my name in your endeavours but I am sure that my licence will help in some way.
I receive a vast correspondence from every Member's constituency. These people do not constitute a pressure group, but their views should not remain unheard.
I wanted to make a speech in commending the Bill to the House, but it is too late. I think we ought to part with the Bill now. We have discussed it exhaustively. I thank right hon. and hon. Members opposite for their assistance, and I thank my hon. Friends for the way in which they have received the Bill.
I earnestly hope that the Bill will help me in what I consider my most difficult task, one I find baffling and perplexing— that of reducing deaths on the road. The individual responsibility is there all the time, and no Minister of any party can really influence the individual driver. At this very moment there might be an accident in Newcastle, Sheffield or Sunder-land, and there is nothing that a Minister of the Crown can do about it.
But we have introduced one new principle, and that is the totting up of offences. I assure motorists that it is not the Government's intention to persecute them in any way. I hope there are fewer convictions, not more. What I particularly want is this. When a man

has one or two endorsements on his licence, I want him to appreciate the implications of a third endorsement and say "My heaves, I must be careful because if I do this again my licence will be suspended automatically". I think that will be the deterrent; it will make him drive carefully. That is what we seek to do in the Bill, and so it is with great pleasure that I commend it for Third Reading.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Strauss: We welcomed the Bill on Second Reading. We give it an even greater welcome now because it has been improved in Committee. The Minister has accepted several important proposals put forward by back benchers on both sides of the House, and, therefore, the Bill is better today than when it first appeared.
It is remarkable that a Bill dealing with road safety and a variety of traffic matters should have passed 'through Committee in two or three months. The previous Bill took well over six months. I Chink the fact that it went through so quickly shows that everybody was most anxious that legislation on this subject should be enacted as soon as possible. It was also a remarkable tribute to the self-denial of hon. Members in that they restrained themselves, sometimes with considerable difficulty, from making the contributions which they felt they could make. If there is one subject on which everybody is an expert, it is road safety, because everyone uses the roads and has his own special ideas about how to reduce accidents.
I said that the Bill had been improved in a number of ways. We wish that the Minister had been able to go further in certain directions where he has not, but we must now accept the Bill as it is. I believe—here I speak entirely for myself—that it errs in only two matters. I do not believe that the three-year totting up proposal will have any significant effect. It will have very little effect compared with a hundred and one other proposals which could be adopted.
My only other criticism of the Bill, as I said in Committee, is that the indiscriminate raising of penalties is


ridiculous when we know that magistrates do not impose the maximum penalties which already exist and are not in the slightest influenced by what the House thinks the maximum penalties should be. To quote one example, the maximum penalty at the moment for careless driving is £40. The number of times that has been imposed is 0·001 per cent. of the whole. The Bill raises the £40 penalty to £100 for the first offence of careless driving. That is nonsense. There are very many proposals in the Bill which are good.
In conclusion I wish to say, and I am sure that the Minister will agree, that what we can do by legislation to bring about road safety is very limited. We can do certain things, and many have been done. But there are many other matters of greater importance, and therefore we urge the Minister when bringing in regulations to be active in other matters, too—in road improvements, in eliminating dangerous corners, in improving the surface of roads, in increasing enforcement, that is, by having bigger police forces so that they can catch the man exceeding the speed limit and who is driving dangerously; and, not least, in propaganda and education.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is doing a good job, though not nearly as good a job as it could do. I think that the advertising campaigns are much too woolly. We need a new psychological approach to the matter in order to make people road-safety minded. It cannot be done by ordinary methods such as those used by people who want to sell detergents or an extra pint of milk a day.
All these matters are of the greatest importance, and we hope that the Minister will be successful in them. We believe that in this matter of road safety the right hon. Gentleman is serving the nation well, although it is the only direction in which we think that he is doing so. We wish him success and we on this side of the House shall do everything we can to ensure that success.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. Rees-Davies: One thing that is certain is that if my right hon. Friend the Minister were to be sent on to the Home Office we should be able to deal

with home safety and that if he were sent on to the Ministry of Labour we might be able to get industrial safety. I would remind the House that though road accidents are extremely serious, industrial accidents are infinitely more serious and do far more harm and damage to the economy and to the life of the country. I hope that in due course my right hon. Friend—he is still a young man—will be able to deal with these problems which up to now these other Ministries have been unable to deal with.
The Minister said that the Bill made a contribution, as indeed it does, to one matter which was entirely novel. The Bill does something constitutional which has never been done before in the history of Parliament, and it is a bold man who can say that. The Amendment, now incorporated in Clause 13 of the Bill as reprinted, will produce the result that the very first order which imposes a minimum speed limit on a particular road will be subject to affirmative Resolution. But subsequent orders for different roads thereafter will not be subject to any proceedings, either affirmative or negative, and, indeed, will not be laid before Parliament at all under Clause 13 (5). But if any order is continued for more than four months by Clause 13 (2), it will be subject to negative Resolution. Thus, in the case of an extension of a second or subsequent order, the House will be asked to extend an order which it has never seen before.
This is very strange indeed. It is important, because these matters may arise again in the future with other Ministries. I have tried to find out whether their are any precedents. The first is the Financial Powers (U.S.A. Securities) Act, 1941. This gave the Treasury power to make regulations about placing United State securities at the Government's disposal. It provided that the first regulation should be subject to affirmative Resolution and subsequent regulations to negative Resolution. But in this Bail there is no provision for laying regulations before Parliament at all.
In the National Assistance Act, 1959, and the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act, 1960, there is provision for negative Resolution for the first orders and thereafter for affirmative Resolution. This Bill, therefore, goes far beyond any constitutional precedent.
The Bill does not provide specifically for these orders to be laid, and there is no obligation to do so under the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946. Thus, although Parliament is given power to annul an order extending another order, it will not have seen the original order at all. When we are asked to approve the extension order, we shall not be able to get copies of the original order being extended.
I am sorry to present this conundrum to the House. I hope that in future the Parliamentary draftsmen and the advisers of the Minister will be more careful. I am very much in favour of the introduction of a minimum speed limit, but this procedure is not satisfactory. It means that if the Minister wants to lay down a minimum speed limit through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) so that I can get to my constituency more quickly, Ms order will never come before the House. Presumably my hon. Friend and I will have to abase permanent secretaries in order to find out about it. The method adopted by the Minister in this case is without constitutional precedent.
I congratulate the Minister on his forthright determination to push his Bill through while at the same time retaining his respect for doughty opponents. I had to fight him tooth and nail on one issue, but I believe that we should not by legislation take away the discretion of courts and force upon them an absolute statutory offence. Hon. Members tried to do it again today by moving an Amendment laying down the specific amount of alcohol which should constitute an offence. The country is against that sort of thing. I was determined to win through on the view that the courts must be given full discretion in these matters. I was delighted with the generous attitude of the Minister. I am sure that it will be proved right. I have no doubt that people like the courts to have the power to impose the sentences which they think fit, subject to a proper right of appeal for the accused person. The more this House tries to interfere, by writing in molecules and percentages of alcohol in the blood into a Bill of this kind, the more we shall bring ourselves into contempt. It is not the job of Parliament to

administer the law but rather to give general guidance on principles and then to leave it to the courts.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) that we cannot create safety by legislation. The most important thing is to provide a first-class road system. Figures relating to the causes of accidents which have been bandied about are largely wrong. In 250 cases with which I have been associated I found that 80 per cent. were caused because people failed to keep a proper look-out or failed to concentrate sufficiently. In some cases the cause might have been drink, but they did not amount to 1 per cent.
The British Medical Association or the doctors do not understand about accidents. The men who know about accidents are the insurance managers and solicitors, the people who come into contact with them. The so-called evidence which is provided by reports is not really evidence. It is the opinion of doctors based on certain data. The real evidence can be obtained from the insurance men and the solicitors.
I believe that this Bill will prove useful and helpful, but the real need is for an improved road service. What will assist to reduce the accident rate more than anything else is the foresight and drive of the Minister and his advisers in improving the roads and the flow of traffic in London and other cities. The provisions in the Bill will be even more valuable when my right hon. Friend has completed his roads programme.

11.14 p.m.

Mr. Cole: The passage of this Bill has provided a perfect, if rare, example of the operation of this House at its best, when it is not bedevilled by political bias. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his Bill, and also on the fact that after two years of frustration he has managed to secure sufficient Parliamentary time to get it on to the Statute Book. I (hope that we shall not have to wait another six years before we have another Measure to deal with road traffic. I am certain Chat within two years there will be a need for another Bill and that within three years Parliament will be debating one. My right hon. Friend has incorporated a number of experiments


into this Bill, and there have been other experiments introduced by other people. We shall have to see how they work. In three years there will probably be a breathalyser and legislation will be required. I give notice now that I hope that we shall have another Road Traffic Bill within three years. I do not mean a Consolidation Bill, but a proper Road Traffic Bill like the 1956 Measure and this Bill.
The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) said that Road Traffic Bills and Road Safety Bills are not enough. I entirely agree. I commend whoever is responsible—I ought to know who is responsible, but I do not know—for this new campaign going on in the Press and on the television to the effect, "Accidents are caused by people like you". I know that that may be out of order, but that in conjunction with the Bill and side by side with this kind of legislation should produce positive results. I commend the simplicity and repetition of the slogan in the propaganda, because that is what gets over to the people. Legislation lays down the prohibitions and warns people what will happen to them if they do not obey the law. Propaganda educates them. The two together are having an effect.
I made speeches on transport in the House ten years ago. I have noticed a different attitude, especially amongst younger people, who are more susceptible to training and education than some older people. If we have enough patience, as we did with housing, to go on and on with education, with a dose of legislation every so often as necessary, we shall at last make an effect on reducing the high percentage of road deaths and serious injuries.
I commend my right hon. Friend for what he is doing. I am a great supporter and fan of his. I hope that he will get all the support he needs to implement this Measure and carry on with his propaganda campaign.

11.17 p.m.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary on what has been a very considerable feat in this Parliamentary Session, namely, getting through two major Bills

—the Transport Bill and the Road Traffic Bill. We are all very grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for the patient work he has done on many details.
With the passage of the Bill we have not by any means solved the traffic problem. Much remains to be done about road traffic in the next few years. When one is aware of the mighty motorways, under-passes, over-passes and closed circuit television for traffic control which are in existence overseas, one recognises what a lot there is still to do.
I am not sure that we have done quite enough in the Bill in respect of defective cars I know that we have the seven-year test. It will shortly be the six-year test. As I have pointed out during the passage of the Bill, there is an enormous number of defective cars on the roads. There are many logbooks relating to old cars floating around. The cars are built up into semi-new cars. It is strange that this country probably has about the oldest fleet of motor vehicles in the world. On the Continent one hardly ever sees an old vehicle, nothing over 5 or 6 years old. The reason is that the high Purchase Tax here gives cars a very high second-hand value. Cars are held on for years and years, much longer than vehicles are kept on the road in other countries.
This has been a useful Bill. I know that my right hon. Friend will go on thinking about traffic problems and acting on them and, I hope, reducing the number of accidents, as he has done already. I think that he is the first Minister of Transport for years and years actually to reduce the number of accidents. Knowing that he will go on in that way, I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill.

11.20 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I also want to say how glad I am that the Bill has finally come to the end of its long journey. It was a traffic casualty itself in the previous Session. It got caught up in a traffic jam and never got through to this House. It has taken quite a long time having reached the House, though not as long as its predecessor in 1955–56.
I differ from my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) in his hope that we shall have another


Road Traffic Brill in two years' time. I have vary much enjoyed our debates on this one but I do not know that I should like to chow all this over again within a spell of 24 months, and I am not quite sure that my right hon. Friend, if he is still occupying his present post two years hence, will want to repeat the experience.
The Bill has been improved during its progress, and while such a Measure may do some good, it would be the greatest mistake to think that it can make a really major contribution to the reduction of road accidents. Even if we were to have another Road Traffic Bill in two years' time, with more details and heavier penalties, it would be impossible for that operation to have a marked effect on road accidents—

Mr. Cole: When I spoke of another Bill, I meant that there would than be new matters to discuss—(hovercraifit on the roads, and so on. I did not mean going through the whole thing again.

Mr. Bell: I had today the agreeable experience of going in a hovercraft, but I do not see these vehicles coming on the roads in the next two years.
What we sometimes overlook in our debate on road safety and road legislation is the fact that we have in this country the most remarkably law-abiding set of motorists in the world. The contrary is constantly implied in our debates, as it has been this evening. We hear so much about the vast number of people killed and injured on our roads and about the heavy burden of guilt and the responsibility lying on my right hon. Friend's shoulders. Of course those people are killed and injured, and it is all very sad that it should be so, but let us not forget that our accident figures compare most favourably with those of any other country and that the number of accidents per vehicle mile have been steadily declining year by year for a long time. We cannot, of course, go too far in our efforts to reduce the accident rate, but our motorists are not the bloody, reckless, careless animals it is sometimes suggested in our discussions that they are. Our motorists, as I say, are the best in the world, and if we are to make really substantial progress in reducing road casualties it must be through our road programme, not through our legislation.
Incidentally, we also have the best road system in the world, which we constantly denigrate. It is inadequate, and should be improved very quickly, but we forget that in Europe about 80 per cent. of the roads are mud surfaced. In one European country that I visited, about 82 per cent. of the roads were gravel surfaced—but we were not, of course, invited to see those roads. We are a little self-depreciatory. I should like to put it the other way round, and say that our motorists are wonderful by any world standards, and that our roads are jolly good.
But, being on top like that, let us do even better, because success leads to success. If that is the picture, it is not right that we should sometimes shape these rather blunt weapons for bludgeoning the motorist. I have sometimes regretted hearing hon. Members on both sides say that motorists who get involved in accidents are so outrageous that we should do all we can to get them convicted. This is a rather lawyer-like quibbling, when one looks into the details, drafting and exact consequences of the provisions.
I have detected almost impatience in certain quarters, an impatience leading one to believe that when a man is brought before a court for a motoring offence he deserves everything and that nothing is too bad. I do not believe that that is a justifiable approach, and many hon. Members have done everything they can to resist that sort of attitude. We have succeeded, while resisting it, in improving the Bill.
In my view, a lot of the accidents occurring after 10 p.m. are not, contrary to what the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) said, caused largely by drink. As my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) pointed out, there is not the slightest evidence to support that argument. It is easy for a committee of doctors to write a pamphlet and circulate it, but their opinions are, after all, only opinions.

Mr. Graham Page: There is hospital evidence to support the argument that drink is responsible. The Cassie Report definitely stated so.

Mr. Bell: All the reports in the world, Cassie Report or otherwise, do not advance the matter one inch.

Mr. Graham Page: Of course they do.

Mr. Bell: Unless there is evidence to show that something is so, one cannot definitely say, "This is so."

Mr. Strauss: What better evidence can there be than the results of examining 500 people who were killed in road accidents? Such an examination was carried out and it was found that 50 per cent. of the corpses had alcohol in their blood to the extent of more than 50 mg. Is that not good enough?

Mr. Bell: I cannot, with great respect, see the relevance of that. There is an accident in which someone happens, because two motor vehicles or a motor vehicle and a pedestrian have come into contact, to be killed. The question is what caused the accident? The fact that alcohol was found in some of the corpses may or may not indicate that the cause was drink, and to try to erect from such indirect evidence a conclusion that more than 50 per cent. of all accidents occurring after 10 p.m. were due to someone being drunk is to carry scientific deduction into the realms of fairy tales.
I do not know what the right figure is, nor does anyone else. We know tine number of people convicted of being drunk while driving motor vehicles. That is a certain and exact statistic. The rest is speculation. I say that because, in my view—which is based on nothing but my own driving experience—a great many accidents which occur after 10 p.m. are caused in some degree by dazzle, which I regard as one of the major factors causing night accidents, a view shared by the late hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, Mr. Bevan, and a great many others.
I beg my right hon. Friend, when using the powers which the Bill gives him for the first time to prescribe the use of headlamps in built-up areas, to remember that if he uses those powers indiscriminately there may be a large increase in the number of deaths and injuries caused by dazzle. I say that because I know that he is under pressure from certain police authorities to use those powers. I shall be sorry if he

increases the amount of headlamp dazzle on our roads.
I can envisage some difficulties arising from the provisions contained in Clause 13 concerning Statutory Instruments. I hope that my right hon. Friend will look into this matter because, as a Member of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, I am not sure how we shall discharge our duty if we are asked to report on Statutory Instruments laid before the House continuing in force Ministerial orders which are not themselves Statutory Instruments, which have never been laid before the House and which may, I suppose, not be supplied before the Select Committee. I hope he will think this over. This is a novel procedure, and it could result in some difficulties in the mechanics of this House.
After those otherwise somewhat critical words, may I nevertheless say that this Bill has my wholehearted approval. I do not think we have wasted any time in debating it. All of the debate has bean entirely genuine and valuable, and this Bill when it goes through will make some contribution, even if not an enormous one, to safety on the roads.

11.31 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: Several of my hon. Friends have already congratulated my right hon. Friend on the passage of this Bill. Several of them have also mentioned that this is not the last word in road safety. I do not think we should part with this Bill, however, without one further last word, which nobody has yet mentioned. This Bill has involved some very intricate drafting, particularly of Amendments. I think we should congratulate my right hon. Friend and his legal advisers on the skill with which they have dealt with some of these Amendments. I am sure that the Bill will be effective, but I do not think it will have the effects which my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) thinks and that some surprising results will emerge in the courts from its drafting. I am sure that it will have the results which are intended.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

NIGERIA (GIFT OF SPEAKER'S CHAIR)

Resolution reported,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that there be presented, on behalf of this House, a Speaker's Chair to the House of Representatives of Nigeria, and assuring Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.

Resolution agreed to.

Address to be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (NORTHERN IRELAND)

11.33 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): I beg to move,
That the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations, 1962, dated 6th July, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12th July, be approved.
These Regulations concern a rather narrow point, and I shall try to be as brief as possible in my explanation of their purpose. I think they can best be described as consequential upon consolidation of the electoral law of Northern Ireland which has recently been carried out by the Parliament of Northern Ireland in the Electoral Law Act, Northern Ireland, 1962.
It has been found convenient for a number of years to combine together in the case of Northern Ireland the register of electors to this Parliament at Westminster, electors to the Parliament of Northern Ireland at Stormont and electors to local authorities in Northern Ireland. This practice is governed on the one side by legislation of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and on the other side by regulations made under our Representation of the People Act, 1949.
Our own regulations are the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations, 1950, as amended by subsequent regulations. Regulation 5 of the 1950 Regulations provides that in every year in which the register of electors to the Northern Ireland Parliament and to local authorities in Northern Ireland is prepared under the provisions of Section 13 of the Elections and Franchise Act, Northern Ireland, 1946, which is, of course, an Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament, the register of electors for that year to the United Kingdom Parliament shall be combined with that Northern Ireland register. The 1946 Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament has, however, been largely repealed and the Northern Ireland law has been consolidated in the Act to which I referred, the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962.
Because of the repeal in large measure of the 1946 Act, we wish now to amend our 1950 Regulations in order


that the registers of electors to the United Kingdom Parliament may continue to be combined with the Northern Ireland registers which will now be published each year under the new Northern Ireland Act of 1962.

Mr. John Diamond: The hon. Gentleman speaks of the 1962 Act as a consolidation Measure. Is he using that term in the same technical sense as we use it here, namely, to mean the grouping together of existing Acts without any variation in them?

Mr. Woodhouse: I believe that to be so in substance. I could not say that it is so verbally throughout, but I think that that is the fact.
For the sake of completeness, I should add that we wish to combine additionally the electors lists—which are, as it were, the preliminary draft of the electors registers—and also the corrupt and illegal practices list in respect of United Kingdom elections with those prepared and published annually under the Northern Ireland Act of 1962 to which I referred.

11.37 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: The Under-Secretary of State, on whose promotion the House congratulates him, has among his duties that of looking after Northern Ireland. We must, of course, bear with him if he has had so many matters on his mind that he has not been able to examine this part of his duties with the care which, I am sure, he has devoted to all the others in the time the has been in the Department.
The hon. Gentleman's introduction of these Regulations could be misleading. He said that we are dealing with a rather narrow point and that these Regulations are consequential upon an Act which had been passed in the Northern Ireland Parliament at the beginning of this year, the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962. When he was interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond), he said that, as far as he knew, this could be described generally as a consolidation Act. It would, therefore, be natural for hon. Members to take it from the hon. Gentleman that this was a purely formal matter and that the Regu-

lations should go through without anyone paying very much attention to them. Also, of course, the time at which the Regulations are brought forward would add to that impression.
I take quite a different view of the Regulations. It is not my fault that they must be discussed at this hour of the night, nor is it your fault, Mr. Speaker. It is the Government's decision that we should discuss these Regulations at a very late hour, but they are very important Regulations nevertheless affecting, in one sense, the whole democratic structure in Northern Ireland. For the Under-Secretary of State to suggest—I do not blame him, for the reasons I explained—that the Measure which was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament was nothing more than a consolidation Measure is to mislead us, albeit unintentionally, in a most monstrous fashion.
The Measure to which these Regulations refer was discussed at very great length in the Northern Ireland Parliament. I assume that every hon. Member present tonight, if not the hon. Gentleman at the Home Office, has read the debates. I have the reports of the debates. There are stacks of them. The Northern Ireland Parliament had long debates on the precise Measure to which these Regulations are related. It had all-night sittings and debates that went on night after night. It had a Guillotine imposed. Before the Guillotine was imposed, the closure was operated in a manner which would make the Patronage Secretary here green with envy. Indeed, I hardly like to reveal this part of my discoveries because it might put ideas in his mind.
If one reads what happened in the Northern Ireland Parliament in discussing the Clause to which these Regulations refer, one sees that very often the Government Chief Whip in the Northern Ireland Parliament would move the closure after a matter had been discussed for a matter of ten minutes.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member be good enough to assist me in explanation of the ground upon which he urges that these matters arise on discussion of the Regulations?

Mr. Foot: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The Minister was asked by my hon. Friend the direct question whether the Electoral


Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, to which the Regulations in approximation apply, was a consolidation Measure.

Mr. Speaker: Two problems arise. One is whether we are discussing these Regulations applying in approximation to that law. The other is whether our rules of order are governed by questions asked of the Minister by an hon. Member. Neither of them appears to me to be right.

Mr. Foot: The spokesman for the Home Office said that the Regulations that we are discussing refer to the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, which was a consolidation Measure. If the House accepted the view of the Home Office that the Act which was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament was a purely consolidation measure, we would be ready to agree with the view of the Home Office. I was indicating, however, that it was a most controversial Measure and, therefore, the Regulations that we are asked to pass may also be controversial. Indeed, no other Measure passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament in recent years has been as controversial as the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962. to which the Regulations are directly related.

Mr. Speaker: It may have been a most heathenly controversial Measure, but what seems to me to arise on the Regulations—and I will hear the ban. Member on the subject—is two quite easy questions, namely, whether these electoral lists should continue to be combined and jointly published and whether the preparation of the corrupt and illegal practices list should be made under a single set of regulations. I do not see how any other issue arises.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Surely, Mr. Speaker, we are entitled to consider whether the Regulations should be made; and in considering that, we must consider whether they are reasonable. Surely, in considering whether the Regulations are reasonable, to bring them into conformity with an Act passed in Northern Ireland, we are entitled to consider the circumstances in which the Northern Ireland Act was passed and the degree of controversy surrounding it.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think so. Of course, the House can consider whether the Regulations are reasonable or desirable. What seem to me to be the grounds on which we can discuss them are the two questions which I have already posed.

Mr. Foot: The question whether the Regulations are reasonable and appropriate is exactly the matter to which I was proposing to direct my remarks, but I was making what I considered to be a legitimate preliminary comment that when these matters were discussed in the Northern Ireland Parliament, so far from the Measure to which the Regulations relate being regarded as a consolidation Measure, it was regarded as a Measure which concerned the whole democratic structure of politics in Northern Ireland.
I understand that it is not right for us in this House to discuss the same matters which were discussed in the Northern Ireland Parliament, but I would draw attention to paragraph 1 of these Regulations. It says:
The register shall, so far as practicable, be combined with the register of parliamentary electors or, as the case may be, the register of parliamentary and local electors prepared and published under section 28 of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) …
One of the matters I wish to discuss, and which I should have thought would have been exactly in order, is whether we should relate our Regulations here to the law under the Electoral Act in Northern Ireland, which was one of the matters which in fact aroused the greatest controversy when discussed in Northern Ireland. Nothing, I should have thought, could be more in order than discussion whether we should pass Regulations which accept in effect the decisions made by the Northern Ireland Pariament on the local electors, and the Minister said himself—

Mr. Stratton Mills: Perhaps I could help the hon. Gentleman, who, I think, has misread the Regulations. The idea is merely the same as that in this country, that the various electoral registers should be in the same document and that they should be made at the same time for purely administrative simplicity. There is no question, in accepting the Regulations,


of making the local Government and Westminster Government electors identical. It is simply that the lists are put inside the same cover.

Mr. Foot: I am sure they are not identical. That is one of the greatest complaints. I am sure the hon. Member knows that. There is no identity at all between the register of local electors and of those voting to send the hon. Gentleman to this House. That is one of the biggest grounds of complaint. The hon. Gentleman knows that very well. I hope he is not going to use his position here to try to deceive innocent Members of this House who do not realise the facts. But some of us are aware of what does happen in Northern Ireland. Of course there is no identity. That is one of the main reasons why the debate went on in the Northern Ireland over a long time and the Guillotine was imposed.
As I said earlier, I should have thought it was a legitimate preliminary comment that what we are discussing here tonight is a matter regarded as of the gravest importance in Northern Ireland by a large number of people—shall we say? —one-third of the population. The hon. Gentleman does not deny that figure. It is a matter of great importance to them, and therefore I am thinking it would be quite wrong for this House to allow this question to go through without discussion, and if in fact the speech of the Under-Secretary had passed without comment, the speech in which he said we were just dealing with a consolidation Measure, and if that had been the news going across to Belfast tomorrow, we should have been laughed out of court. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not like that to happen. So I was just making a preliminary comment, as I said.
I must say that I have not studied the affairs of the Northern Ireland Parliament in such detail for quite a time, and I am absolutely shocked at the way in which the Measure dealing with the whole conduct of elections in Northern Ireland should have been debated—

Mr. Speaker: Order. In no conceivable fashion imaginable can what happened in the Northern Ireland Parliament in relation to that Measure as a

matter of procedure be in order in discussion of these Regulations.

Mr. Foot: No. I have been led astray by what the hon. Gentleman said—that this was a purely consolidation Measure. I leave that at once.
As I said earlier, one part of the Regulations we should examine most carefully is that paragraph I have already quoted. This is one of the reasons why such strong objection is taken to the Electoral Law Act, with which we are supposed to co-ordinate these Regulations, because the local register, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) has indicated, is quite different from the national register in Northern Ireland. There are large numbers of people who are deprived of the right to vote in local elections in Northern Ireland even though they have the right to send Members of Parliament to this House.

Mr. Stratton Mills: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I right in my understanding of what you have ruled as to the width of discussion on these Regulations? Is it correct that the only point arising for discussion is not the merits or otherwise of the electoral laws in Northern Ireland, but purely whether one should combine the list for the Westminster elections in the same book as for local government elections and the Stormont elections?

Mr. Speaker: What I have said, and I am sure it is right, is that the issue before the House is on—leaving out the "corrupt" and what-not list—whether two lists should be combined, and I do not regard as relevant to that the methods, or the alleged improper methods, by which a certain Statute was secured its passage through the Northern Ireland Parliament.

Mr. Archie Manuel: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills), I see in the document the words:
The register shall, so far as practicable.
Can we debate the meaning of those words or their limitation? It is very strange to us in that the reference is to its being "practicable" to combine


the register. So it is not exactly a combination of the register but only "in so far as it is practicable to combine the register". This is a great limitation and should be probed thoroughly in order to discover why.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member's view is interesting, but I do not feel that the practicability of combination of the two registers is in any way related to the procedure by which the Northern Ireland Statute came upon the Northern Ireland Statute Book.

Mr. Foot: Mr. Speaker, you rebuked me earlier for discussing the methods by which this Measure was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament, and although I thought it was a perfectly legitimate point for me to make, as a result of your Ruling I have abandoned that part of my argument and I was proceeding to a further part of the argument.
I said that one of the major complaints about the whole situation in Northern Ireland—thus has nothing to do with what was discussed in the Northern Ireland Parliament—is the distinction between the registers for those who can vote in local elections in Northern Ireland and those who can vote in the elections either to the Stormont Parliament or to this House. Then the hon. Gentleman interrupted me. He and his hon. Friends may be able to stop debate in the Northern Ireland Parliament, but I hope they cannot do it here.
It is a fact, I am sure—the hon. Member did not interrupt me to deal with the facts—that only about two-thirds of the electorate in Northern Ireland are able to vote in local elections. In the City of Belfast there are 81,000 people who can vote for candidates for the Stormont Parliament or for this Parliament but cannot vote in local elections. In the City of Derry there are some 8,000 electors who are able to vote in national elections but are denied the right to vote in local elections. How can anybody defend such a principle?

Mr. Stratton Mills: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be glad to discuss every aspect of partition between the North and the South of Ireland with the hon. Gentleman, but

with regard to the limitation of debate on these Regulations, is not the hon. Gentleman going very much wider of the point in dealing with the merits once again?

Mr. Speaker: I thought that in that passage, exceptional as it may be, the hon Gentleman was legitimately arguing why there should not be a combination of the two lists, which is rather different from the note on which he started.

Mr. Foot: I am most grateful to you for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I never mentioned anything about partition. I was discussing the situation of citizens of this country for whom we are responsible who are denied rights in Northern Ireland which they would have if they lived in this country. The hon. Gentleman, Who no doubt gets elected to this House by boasting of his allegiance to the British flag, ought to try to incorporate into
the laws of Northern Ireland more of the laws of this country.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member keeps putting me in a difficulty. The question of whether it should be incorporated into the law of Northern Ireland is another matter. We are discussing that the two lists, so far as practicable, shall be combined.

Mr. Foot: I have been led astray again by the hon. Gentleman, but I will now stick strictly to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker.
I thought that when I was discussing the distinction between the two registers I was on very firm ground, and I could quote further examples of how, in fact, large numbers of people in Northern Ireland are denied rights which they would obviously have in this country. Moreover, at the same time as large numbers of people in Northern Ireland are denied the right to vote on these local registers there are other people there who are given plenty of votes on the register. In local elections, as the hon. Gentleman knows very well, large numbers of people in Northern Ireland have seven or eight votes because they have a business vote, a company vote.
All the arrangements which we made under our laws for setting up new registers in 1946 and 1947 when we overhauled local government in this country


and all the measures which we put through for establishing universal suffrage in local elections in this country have not been adopted in Northern Ireland. Domestic servants are excluded in Northern Ireland and people who are employed in many places do not have votes. That may astonish some hon. Members, but it is true. At the same time there are large numbers of people who have seven or eight votes. The hon. Gentleman does not deny that.

Lieut.-Colonel R. G. Grosvenor: Can the hon. Gentleman substantiate that fact?

Mr. Foot: Of course I can.

Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor: The hon. Gentleman would do a great service if he could substantiate it categorically.

Mr. Foot: I will substantiate it only too gladly. I have here the report of the Parliamentary debates in which the whole of this law was discussed in Northern Ireland. Mr. Speaker would rule me out of order if I went into the details of that discussion. The facts were never denied. Statements were made by spokesmen in the Northern Ireland Parliament that many company voters, as they are called, had seven or eight votes, and that was never denied by the spokesmen of the Northern Ireland Government. If the hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor) can produce to me from the report of the debates, which I am sure he will have studied, evidence that this fact was ever denied by spokesmen in the Northern Ireland Parliament I shall be glad to withdraw.

Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor: The hon. Gentleman will realise that I am asking the question.

Mr. Hugh Delargy: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman deny this?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We shall get into difficulties if we have interventions upon interventions.

Mr. Delargy: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has raised a point. I merely ask whether he will deny that there are

persons in Northern Ireland who have more than one vote.

Mr. Speaker: Here is the difficulty, and it is a perfectly sensible one. I am sure the hon. Member will agree with me. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will speak and when he does he will be able to intervene upon him. What is the difficulty about the process of debate is the permitting of an intervention upon an intervention. I am sure that will be understood.

Mr. Foot: The hon. and gallant Member fox Fermanagh and South Tyrone challenged me, I am sure in good faith, to substantiate my statement. I have read the debates on this matter which took place in Northern Ireland—which is more than he has done—when this question of people having seven or eight votes was raised. The allegation was made time and again and never denied by the Government there. Indeed, Government spokesmen gloried in the fact. They argued that not only did this happen but that it was right to happen, because this was one way to attract industries to Northern Ireland.

Mr. Stratton Mills: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for pressing you on this matter, but I feel that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) is going much beyond the bounds of these Regulations. I submit that the only point on which he can address the House is on the question of whether the registers should be combined. Yet he is discussing at great length the whole question of the composition of the Northern Ireland Parliament and of the local government side of the register. I submit that this is definitely not relevant.

Mr. Speaker: The question is whether the register should continue to be combined. I agree that the limits are delicate, but obviously criticism of the contents of one element of the to be combined list is just within the limits. Nothing would be more tedious or out of order than to discuss the debates in the Northern Irish Parliament underlying the Act which gives rise to the present contents of the register alleged to be defective. But the line is delicate. I hope that we can get on.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I submit quite strongly that we cannot discuss the composition of Stormont and the local government side of the register. With respect, I suggest that you have given a slight edge by which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale can discuss these things.

Mr. Speaker: The question is Whether the lists should continue to be combined. If one of them is vicious, then that is an argument in flavour of not continuing the combination. That is the limit.

Mr. Foot: You have made my speech much more eloquently than I could have done, Mr. Speaker. You say that if the system of local registers is vicious then obviously that is a ground—

Mr. G. B. H. Currie: It would be interesting, in considering this matter, to know whether the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is expressing the official view of the Labour Party or merely a part of it.

Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman should know that I am speaking for myself, and it would be a good thing if he did that for a change. It seems that the only object of interventions by hon. Members from Northern Ireland is to try to stop other people from speaking.
You said, Mr. Speaker, that if the system of local elections and the register of local electors was vicious, this was obviously ground for not continuing it. I would have thought it perfectly proper for me to cite, as evidence of why I thing it is indeed vicious, the fact that a large number of people in Northern Ireland, in debate on the electoral law Which were of such length that the guillotine was imposed and the closure was moved—

Mr. Speaker: Order, That is precisely what I said was out of order. I wish the hon. Member would remember that.

Mr. Foot: I understand that it would be proper for me to go over the arguments that took place in the Northern Ireland Parliament. But you said quite clearly, Mr. Speaker, that there is the question of whether the register of local

electors in Northern Ireland is vicious, and surely that is a matter for argument. Some hon. Members disagree and say that it is a perfectly proper system. I am trying to sustain the view that it is vicious, to use your own word.

Mr. Speaker: I am not doing more than discharging my duty. Whatever happened in the Northern Ireland Parliament in relation to the passage of the Act which constituted the lists, the procedural matters, such as the Guillotine, cannot be relevant to this debate.

Mr. Foot: I do not wish to be over-persistent in the matter, but if the question is whether the way in which they register local electors is evidence or not, surely it is proper to cite the evidence on one side or the other. I should have thought that among the evidence which could be cited—even though you rebuke me for saying so, apparently, Mr. Speaker, I still think so—is what many people in Northern Ireland think, and particularly as other people from Northern Ireland who sit as Members of this House are not speaking for the people of Northern Ireland tonight.
A large number of people in Northern Ireland are very concerned about this matter. They think that they are being robbed of their rights. They are denied the right to vote in local elections. All these people—

Mr. Speaker: Order. All that may be perfectly right and true. But the Regulations which we are debating relate to whether the two existing lists shall continue to be combined.

Mr. Foot: I should have thought that when we are deciding whether to approve the Regulations and agree to combine them, and whether to vote on the matter, we are entitled to discuss and consider the views of the people in Northern Ireland on the subject. As is perfectly evident from what has happened in the debate, the spokesmen from Northern Ireland have come here eager to suppress debate rather than to engage in it. The Measure was passed through the Northern Ireland Parliament in circumstances which I will not describe, because to do so might cause me to become out of order. I should have thought it perfectly proper for hon.


Members on this side of the House to say that we are going to vote on opinions held by a large number of people in Northern Ireland, including those who are disenfranchised, and will continue to be, if we give our approval to these Regulations. This House still retains a considerable responsibility for what happens in Northern Ireland. We have representatives from that country who sit in this House—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not following the hon. Gentleman and I am trying to do so. He will correct me if I am wrong. The alleged disfranahisement —I am trying to use a neutral expression —does not arise from the question, aye or no, should these lists continue to be combined. It arises, as I understand the argument of the hon. Gentleman, upon some Statute passed by the Northern Ireland Parliament. The issue on these Regulations is whether the existing lists shall continue to be combined.

Mr. Foot: Yes, Mr. Speaker. But this Act which was passed by the Northern Ireland Parliament a few months ago so far from being a consolidation Measure was one which perpetuated what had gone on before that time, and when many people in Northern Ireland are saying that the whole electoral law in Ireland should be reconsidered. They debated all these electoral matters, and therefore if, when we are asked to give our opinion on two registers which will conform to the Act which was passed in Ireland, we allowed this to go through and accepted the view of the Minister, the news which would go to Northern Ireland tomorrow would be that the British House of Commons approved what had been done. There is not the slightest doubt that the view of many people in Ireland, and of the newspapers, would be that, despite all the disturbance in the Stormont about this matter, the British Parliament had accepted it without anyone thinking that it was of importance. In that sense, we are deciding whether we shall approve the consolidation of the two registers, and therefore I think that we are entitled to discuss whether we approve of many of the items included in the Act which—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That really is not so, and the whole debate will get

out of order unless I persist in interrupting the hon. Gentleman, although I regret the necessity for doing so. The point is, shall these two lists continue to be combined? Suppose the House decided that they should not be combined by disapproving these Regulations. Whatever the defect of disfranchisement of which the hon. Gentleman speaks, it would remain. The combination of the lists does not affect that factor. That is the difficulty.

Mr. Fletcher: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, surely we must be able to contend that the Northern Ireland list is open to such objection, is so defective and so vicious, that our United Kingdom list ought not to be combined with it?

Mr. Speaker: Yes. I do not mind that in the least, but the idea that the merits or demerits of the disfranchisement can be discussed is wrong, because it will remain whether the House approves or disapproves of these Regulations. That is the distinction.

Mr. Foot: There are other grounds, to which I will turn now, on which I believe that we should not agree to the Regulations. We cannot pass these Regulations without giving in some measure approval to the form of the register which they have accepted in the Northern Ireland Parliament. There are other grounds of objection apart from the disfranchisement of people in local elections. Hon. Members may not be aware of the many differences in the electoral system which they have in Northern Ireland. They do have poll cards sent out by the Post Office, as we have in this country. This system was introduced in this part of the United Kingdom to ensure that more people would be able to vote at elections, which is very directly connected with the registers. They do not have that in Northern Ireland. Attempts were made there to try to get the system introduced. They were all rejected by the friends of hon. Members opposite who represent Northern Ireland in this House.
In many cases they are now allowed to use schools for public meetings in Northern Ireland. They introduced Measures that try to obtain that. That was also denied. There are many other differences. Under their rules they still


have university votes. Queen's University returns Members representing 3,000 voters each, although the average for the whole country is about 18,000. Attempts were made to change that. It was changed in this country, but not in Northern Ireland, not even by those in Northern Ireland who boast of their efforts to maintain the British way of life. They talk about the British way of life, but they do not incorporate into their system the British electoral method.
There is another ground on which I object to the registers. This is more important than any of the other points which I have raised. These registers refer to particular boundaries of constituencies. In the Act to which these Regulations are related and to which the registers are related the boundaries of the different constituencies are laid out. The boundaries are such that in local elections and in national elections the will of the Irish people is grossly distorted. Numerous cases can be cited. Derry City has a two-thirds Nationalist population, but owing to the way in which the register is organised, which we are partly discussing, the Unionists are in control. The same applies in Omagh in Tyrone and in Eniskellen in Fermanagh. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] Eniskellen. Hon. Members opposite have never heard of it. Perhaps I cannot pronounce the words right, but I have the facts correct. Hon. Members opposite want to suppress this. The facts, which they want to conceal, are that under this form of register— hon. Members opposite laugh about it— in great townships and cities in Northern Ireland, although the majority of people are Nationalist in their outlook, they can never get a majority in their own cities. This is an outrage, but hon. Member opposite laugh at it.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It may be an outrage. It may not be. How will that be affected by approving or disapproving of these Regulations?

Mr. Foot: I think that I can answer that very simply, Mr. Speaker. If we were to throw out these Regulations tonight it would have a very big effect in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Speaker: Whatever they are, to change the constituents of the Northern Ireland register, they are wholly in-

effective. I am not trying to be tiresome to the hon. Gentleman but trying to present to him the effect of the Regulations.

Mr. Stratton Mills: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for being persistent, but I ask you once again to look at your Ruling that the alleged "viciousness" in the Northern Ireland electoral law gives an opportunity for this matter to be discussed under these Regulations, because if one does that the whole field can be discussed.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman is night to that extent. It depends on the class of viciousness ome is discussing. If the lists were not in accordance with Northern Ireland law and were vicious in that respect, the argument would at once be valid. That is the difficulty. But the issue before the House is whether or mot we approve of these Regulations, and a state of affairs left unaffected by the approval or disapproval is a matter out of order. That is the difficulty about it all.

Mr. Delargy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You mentioned Northern Ireland law, but we are not here concerned with Northern Ireland law; we are here concerned with British law.

Mr. Speaker: I am so sorry—the hon. Gentleman corrects me with complete accuracy. I meant statute law enacted in the Northern Ireland Parliament.

Mr. William Ross: Perhaps you could help us, Mr. Speaker, in relation to the limitations under the Regulations which we are asked to approve. To take "Preparation of the register", we are asked to approve in paragraph 1 (1) these words:
… All claims for registration and all objections to any person's registration shall be made within the time and in the manner prescribed by, and shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the said Act of 1962 …
To ask us to approve that without examining the provisions of that Act is Surely asking far too much.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think so. All these Regulations ask is whether or no the two lists shall continue to be combined, that is all.

Mr. Foot: Then I wonder why, in that case, Mr. Speaker, the matter should ever have arisen, if it was so purely technical as that. I am told that I raised it, but that is not the case. Why is it that these Regulations are brought before the House at all? It is because in Northern Ireland they have passed a new Act, which the Minister thought to be a purely consolidation Act until I informed him otherwise. He now learns that it is a much bigger affair. As a result, we are asked to pass these Regulations, so we are surely entitled to decide with some care whether or not we should give our approval. But if we find that the registration is conducted in a manner that we in this part of the United Kingdom would find deplorable, surely we are entitled to make our protest and, if we wanted to, say to the Minister, "Take back your Regulations and discuss the matter with the Northern Ireland Parliament," which is exactly the main point I shall try to press on the House.
I do not blame the Minister because, in particular, we know that there have been some rather drastic changes, but that is what happened, and it directly relates to the Regulations. Following the passage of the Act in Northern Ireland, representations were made to our own Home Office. The Nationalist members—and, I think, some others— presented a memorandum to the Home Office asking it to reconsider the Regulations under the Act. I do not know whether the Minister recalls that, or has been informed about it by his officials, but he should find out about it, because I am informed that soon after the passage of the Act, a month or two ago, prior to the introduction of these Regulations, representations were made by the minority in Northern Ireland to the Home Office, asking it to set up some form of inquiry, or to consider the whole question before proceeding to draft the Regulations to be presented to this House.
What did the Home Secretary, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister, do? According to my information—and I would be glad to have this confirmed or denied—no reply was sent to this memorandum. The Home Office merely referred the matter to the Stormont Parliament to deal with. It is just as if repre-

sentations were made to the Home Office from, say, Leicester, Orpington, Bradford or Stockton saying that something was wrong with an election and the Home Office passed the matter on to the Conservative Central Office. About the same process would be involved. As I say, according to my information that is what happened.
Do hon. Members opposite feel strongly about this? They may do, but the people in Ireland feel even more anxious. Hon. Members opposite have the right to vote. Should not the people of Ireland have the same right? This anomalous position arises; a person in Northern Ireland may stand for Parliament in London if he is a member of the Sinn Fein Party, but he is not allowed to stand for the Stormont Parliament or even to vote. While hon. Members opposite may feel very strongly about this, I can assure them that the people of Ireland feel even more strongly. They have justice in saying that they should have some say, for although it is possible for a Catholic to be President of the United States, he could never be a leading citizen in Derry City.
Hon. Members opposite must not think that they feel so passionately about Ulster. The people there have rights. It is because their rights are not represented in this House and because no voice is raised from Ireland to speak for them on the benches opposite that some of us are acting in this way. After all, they have many other problems in Northern Ireland. There are many other distinctions between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. They have a much heavier rate of unemployment. They badly need their electoral rights.
We must, therefore, ask the Home Office to explain why no reply has been made to the representations made by the minority in Ireland, representations sent to the Home Office following the passage of the new law. We must also ask the Home Office to remove these Regulations in view of what has been said, in view of what others will say and in view of our deep concern over what is happening in Northern Ireland. The Home Office should reconsider the matter and discuss the whole question with the Northern Ireland Parliament,


because there is no doubt that they would wish to be in on the discussions.
Some of us want these Regulations repealed tonight because we want the people of Ireland to know that we are dissatisfied with what is happening there. We must let them know that we are not content—certainly not content with a situation in which in a Parliament 20 out of the 39 Unionist Members in Northern Ireland are invariably elected unopposed. Why should they care about registers? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is true. And they also arrange boundaries. The whole system is manipulated by a power which I do not say is dictatorial—I would not compare it with what happens in Spain, Portugal or some countries in the East—but which is bad enough.

Sir Harmer Nicholls: Mr. Herbert Morrison, now Lord Morrison, altered our boundaries.

Mr. Foot: If the hon. Member studies the matter he will find that as a result of him altering our boundaries the Labour Party lost the Election of 1951.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We seem to be getting a long way from the combination of these two electoral lists.

Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman who interrupted me need not think that the operation and manipulation of boundaries in Northern Ireland is a laughing matter. Anybody who has studied the matter knows that the boundaries on the registers have been manipulated to sustain in power a single party rule. I ask the House and the Home Office to consider this matter very seriously, and I ask the people of Northern Ireland, including those who have almighty powers with their guillotines in the Stormont, to recognise that whatever they may do, there are some people who will raise these matters in this House, even though it is very rarely done by the so-called representatives of the Irishmen.

12.25 a.m.

Mr. John Diamond: I may have misunderstood the situation, but, as I read these Regulations, we are dealing with a simple point as to whether certain registers should continue to be combined—that is to say, either to be printed on one piece of paper and to

have marks made against individual names to denote whether they shall be included for all three parties or, as the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) has indicated, combined by being bound together in one bound volume.
I seek to address arguments to demonstrate that the continuation of this procedure has led to difficulties. I would illustrate very shortly what those difficulties are, and I hope to convince the Government that it would be unwise to continue this system of combination because of the difficulties to which it has led. It is precisely because we are continuing the system that I think I am entitled to address these arguments.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) has made clear, the lists are different in the sense that some (people are entitled to vote on one list and those people are not entitled to vote on another list. On the first list of local elections the system might be described as less than democratic because any number of people do not have a vote at all. On the list for the Stormont Parliament the system may be described as something more than democratic because many people have more than one vote. Some of them, as my hon. Friend has demonstrated and proved, have eight.

Mr. Currie: Rot.

Mr. Diamond: I apologise for the noise which was being made as you were talking the Chair, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was pointing out that there are two separate lists on the first of which—the local authority list—many people do not have a vote at all, and on the second list —the Stormont Parliament list—many people have more than one vote, some as many as eight votes.

Mr. Currie: Would the hon. Gentleman be so kind as to give an illustration to the House? Can he cite some individual case where the elector has eight votes?

Mr. E. Fernyhough: Would my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Diamond: Perhaps it would be more convenient if I were to deal with one intervention at a time. The last thing I want to do is to cause difficulties


with the Chair owing to the fact that there has been a slight misunderstanding as to the extent of this debate. However, as opposed to the hon. Member who just intervened, I take the view that considerable regard should be had for authoritative statements in the Stormont Parliament.

Mr. Currie: rose—

Mr. Diamond: Might I finish my observations, or is the hon. Member seeking to delay the proceedings?

Mr. Currie: No.

Mr. Diamond: Since the hon. Gentleman has asked a question, perhaps I might answer it. I attach considerably mere weight than he does to the authoritative statements in the Stormont Parliament. In that Parliament the allegation is made and repeated that individuals have more than one vote. There are many examples in the Act, if I may be allowed to read the Act to which the Regulations refer. I can read the list of the different circumstances under which a person can have a vote. There are many instances. They are referred to in the Schedules to the Act and under Section 28. I am sure that the hon. Member is just as familiar as I am with the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962.

Mr. Currie: Eight votes?

Mr. Diamond: These statements having been repeatedly made in the Stormont Parliament and accepted, that is fairly good evidence, good enough for me. One can envisage under the law circumstances in which a person could have more than eight votes. That merely depends on how many different constituencies in which he has property.

Mr. Currie: Will the hon. Gentleman give an example of an individual who, to his knowledge, has eight votes?

Mr. Diamond: No, I cannot give an example of an individual because I do not know of any particular individual by name who has eight votes. I am dealing with the matter in a much broader and more responsible way by referring to the number of votes which a person could have under the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, and the number of votes which it is admitted in the Stormont Parliament he could have.
I do not know why hon. Members opposite are so touchy about it and why they keep seeking to restrict the debate. It is an extremely important matter.

Mr. Currie: I merely want the truth to be stated.

Mr. Diamond: No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman has his chance to intervene. I noticed that when the opportunity came for him to intervene he did not seek to rise. Apparently, he has nothing to say but merely wants to interrupt other people's speeches.

Mr. Peter Walker: Who is being touchy now?

Mr. Diamond: Hon. Members apposite seem to regard this matter with more jocularity than same of us do. If the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Currie) seeks to catch your eye in due course, Mr. Speaker, no doubt he will be given his opportunity.
What we are concerned with is the fact that, by combining two registers, we have created difficulties in the past, and those difficulties are likely to continue if we go on with the same process. The argument is as simple as that. I shall illustrate it with one or two examples.
On one list a man may have a vote and on the other list he may not have a vote. Let us consider the position of an elector to the Stormont Parliament He wants to vote in a local authority election. If he had a separate list, he would examine that separate list and ascertain whether he had or had not a vote in the local authority ejection. However, because it is a combined list, he does not seek to do this. There are any number of people who are entitled to vote but who do not do so. I am not seeking to examine the grounds on which votes are granted but merely to consider whether such votes as are granted are, in fact, exercised. A mam who is entitled to vote does not exercise his right to vote because of the confusion arising from the combination of the lists.
What are some of the results of such a person refraining from exercising his right to vote? The local elector is unable to put pressure on his local representatives. Fundamentally, of


course, that is the way in which one puts pressure on elected representatives. One does not do it merely by saying to a local councilor, "Will you please do this". One does it by asking him to do something and then adding, "If you do not, please remember that, when your time comes for re-election, I shall not vote for you". As a result of the combination of the lists, a man is denied the knowledge that he has a vote and he is denied the opportunity to put pressure on local councilors.
What are the consequences of this denial? Circumstances in Northern Ireland are not what they should be. Local councilors are not made as fully aware as they should be of, for instance, the state of unemployment in Northern Ireland. They acre not made as fully aware as they should be that, during the past ten years, unemployment there has averaged 8 per cent. The elector cannot bring pressure to bear upon his local authority representative because of the combination of the list.
Not sufficient activity takes place in order to encourage the economy of Northern Ireland. There is the further difficulty that the Under-Secretary of State well remembers from a previous incarnation, a difficulty which still exists and which is likely to continue for many subsequent incarnations unless something is done and every opportunity is taken to bring the matter to the notice of the Government. As a result of the circumstances Which I have described, local authority representatives are not made sufficiently aware of the critical situation in Northern Ireland in certain respects. In Belfast, for example, local councillors are not made sufficiently aware of the fact that there is a large firm there by the name of Short's which is on the point of folding up because the Government over there—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Member, but I do not think that he is entitled to go into such detail as he appears to be doing.

Mr. Diamond: Of course, I accept immediately what you say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I have given one example, and one only, of the general thesis I was propounding, which depended on the

simple argument that we ware making a mistake by combining the lists, and it is about combining the lists that the Regulations exist. I hope, therefore, that I shall not offend unduly. I have quoted one example only and I turn immediately to the second point.

Mr. Peter Kirk: Before the hon. Member does so, can he explain to me, not knowing the details of the Northern Ireland position, how it differs from the position of people in this country who have local government votes in constituencies in which they do not reside and do not have Parliamentary votes? There are instances of that in a number of constituencies and it seems to be much the same thing.

Mr. Diamond: I am grateful for the hon. Member's intervention. He is asking me to explain the difference in Northern Ireland and here. The difference is that Northern Ireland has unemployment permanently at the rate of 8 per cent.—[Interruption.]—I have been asked a question and, presumably, I will be allowed to answer it as the question was allowed to be put.
The difference between Northern Ireland and here is that in Northern Ireland, as a result of the combination of the registers and the lack of expression, therefore, of voters to which they are entitled, there exists a state of affairs of unemployment at 8 per cent. which is accepted and continued year after year, whereas here, in any area such as Northern England or Scotland, if the unemployment gets to half that figure we spend days debating that topic. That is the difference between the two countries.

Mr. Carrie: rose—

Mr. Diamond: I cannot give way.

Mr. Carrie: Give way.

Mr. Diamond: The hon. Member, who invites me to give way, has just come into the Chamber and is not aware of the interventions—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. Only one hon. Member can address the House at once.

Mr. Fernyhough: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Could we have


your assurance that if any hon. Member from Northern Ireland would like to speak in the debate, you will call him?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The House knows the rule perfectly well. Hon. Members rise and take their chance of catching the eye of the Chair.

Mr. Diamond: I take it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the rule still applies that if an hon. Member does not rise, you do not call his name and require him to speak. Northern Ireland Members opposite have not risen whilst there was an opportunity to speak. They have risen only so long as there was not opportunity to speak and another hon. Member was on his feet.

Mr. Currie: The hon. Member will not give way to them.

Mr. Diamond: I turn to the second leg of the argument, namely, that the combination of the two lists leads to difficulties for those on the other list and not on the first one—that is to say, those who would want to vote in a national election but are on the local authority's list and, because the lists are combined, do not go out and seek a separate list to see whether they are entitled to vote and, because they do not seek a separate list, know that they are not entitled to vote on the local authority's list and, therefore, deny themselves the right to vote on the major or nationalist. Indeed, they deny themselves once, twice, thrice, four, five, six, seven or even eight times according to the number of votes to which they are entitled under the Act, which it is not our province to discuss, but merely to take note of the results.
Therefore, we get the situation that there exists in Northern Ireland a lack of adequate political representation because people do not exercise their votes as a result of the combination of the lists. As a result of the combination of the lists and people not exercising their votes, they are not able to put proper pressure on their Parliamentary representatives. Every Member of Parliament here knows that when a constituent comes and asks a question and invites one's co-operation, he may finish by saying, "I hope you will do this for me. Remember that I am a

constituent and have the power to vote for you. "But how does one react to a constituent who says," Will you please do this for me although it will be very awkward for you and land you in a lot of difficulty? Will you do it for me, bearing in mind that whether you do it or whether you do not do it it will make not the slightest difference to the voting at the next election because I, who am asking you to do this, have no vote"?
Therefore, we have the situation in Northern Ireland of continuing unemployment, which is continuing at a rate which is intolerable by any standard other than a Northern Ireland standard —utterly intolerable. We get the situation where hon. Members who are supposed to be looking after their constituents and the rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland are not subject to the proper—I repeat, proper: not an improper—proper pressure to which every Member of Parliament ought to be subject by the fact that if he does not look after his constituents properly and see they have work he will not be re-elected at the next election.
As a result of the compilation of these two registers and the lack of clarity which follows from their compilation and the continuation of the system as before, we get a continuation of the situation we have had over the last ten years, where anything up to 10 per cent. or more of those who are seeking work in Northern Ireland find themselves unable to get it and unable to exert appropriate political pressure which would result in their obtaining it. Therefore, these being the circumstances, the results flowing directly from the operation of the system of combing these lists, which I am sure is a proper thing to discuss in a debate limited by the Regulations before us, I hope very much that all of us are going to voice our opinions and do our best to see that these Regulations do not go through and do our best to see that the people of Northern Ireland have representatives who are prepared to see they do get work and that Short's, for example, does get more orders.

12.42 a.m.

Mr. Stratton Mills: We have listened to a pretty little series of sermons from Gloucester and Ebbw Vale this evening about these Regulations. As I tried to demonstrate on


points of order when Mr. Speaker himself was in the Chair, the point here is a very narrow one indeed. Although I do not quarrel with the Chair's Ruling, I would be reluctant to follow the full width of debate taken by the two previous speakers on the whole subject of Northern Ireland electoral law, but I hope that by saying that I shall not debar myself from just one or two comments inside the rules of order.
In the Stormont election of 1953 I was an election agent, and I can testify to the very great complications which one had in dealing with the law spread over many Statutes and over many regulations. I can assure the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) that the 1962 Act was a Measure of codification. I think I am supported in my view by this, that though the hon. Gentleman had the Act with him this evening he was unable to point out one new point in the Act to demonstrate that it was not a Measure of codification. I will certainly give way if he or any other hon. Member wishes to oppose my point on that. No? It looks as though both sides of the House accept what I say.

Mr. Diamond: As I was invited to intervene I would ask the hon. Gentleman a question. If that Measure was, as he says, merely a matter of codification— which in this House under our rules we cannot debate at all—and if it was purely a consolidation Measure, as the Under-Secretary said it was, would the hon. Gentleman kindly explain why nevertheless the debate on it went on for a very long time and why it was so extremely controversial?

Mr. M. Foot: Since the Hon. Gentleman insists it was a consolidation Measure, would he comment on the statement of the Minister of Home Affairs, who, introducing the Bill on Second Reading, said at the conclusion of his speech, having gone through each part of the Bill,
It will be quite clear to hon. Members that this is in very large measure"—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I understand that that is quoting from what the Minister said in another Parliament. Am I correct?

Mr. Delargy: That is surely what we are discussing.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Following Mr. Speaker's Ruling, I am anxious that our debate should be confined to citing arguments why, or not, these two electoral lists should continue to be combined, and it seems to me that we are in danger of going far beyond that quite simple argument.

Mr. Delargy: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The very simple issue before us tonight is to approve of something which was done in another Parliament. Why, therefore, can we not discuss what was done in that Parliament?

Mr. Foot: rose—

Mr. Delargy: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I put a point of order to you.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I did not reply because I did not think it was outside the proposition which I put forward as to what I believed to be in order. We are discussing whether or no two electoral lists should continue to be combined and published together in one bound volume.

Mr. Manuel: On another point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, arising from the position in which the House now finds itself. The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) threw out a challenge, which you allowed, regarding codification. The challenge has been offered and now we cannot answer it. You ruled it out of order after the hon. Member had offered it.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It may be that I should have intervened a minute or two earlier. I accept responsibility for that. But let us get off that and back to what is in order.

Mr. Diamond: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I address an argument to you to illustrate that your Ruling was, as usual, exactly correct in allowing the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) to throw out a challenge? Before you came into the Chair—you would not be aware of this unless somebody told you —the Minister, in introducing them, made it clear that the Regulations referred to the Act, which he said once or twice he thought was a consolidating Measure. It is most material to the consideration of these Regulations


whether the Act was a pure piece of codification, because that would rule out all sorts of arguments as to whether it was the sort of Measure one would imagine it to be having regard to the fact that it was fought, and fought very heatedly, in the Northern Ireland Parliament. With the greatest deference, I would say how wise I thought you were in allowing the challenge to be made by the hon. Gentleman as to whether this was or was not a consolidating Measure.

Mr. Currie: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Surely it is completely out of order for us to discuss in this Parliament what has taken place, or the manner in which a debate has been conducted, in the Parliament of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is what I believe to be so.

Mr. Stratton Mills: rose—

Mr. B. T. Parkin: Will the hon. Member give way, since he issued a challenge?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: A point of order?

Mr. Parkin: Not a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because I do not think a point of order arose out of what the hon. Gentleman said, for he did not seek to prove that this was a consolidation Measure but threw out a challenge to any hon. Member on the Opposition benches to say whether there was any new point in the Act which has just been passed. Surely it would be in order for some of us to take part in this discussion on the ground that we objected to the time of the House being taken to approve these Regulations issued by a British Home Secretary because there is no new point, on the ground that we are asked to spend the time of the House endorsing a Measure which makes no contribution whatever to the reform of the procedures for electing people to a Parliament in Northern Ireland which might contribute something to solving the economic problems of that area in respect of which we in this House have a great deal of responsibility but very little power?

Mr. Stratton Mills: With respect, I think that I can differentiate between a point of substance and a pure debating point under which category the last intervention would come.
I will deal with the point of substance made by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond). He suggested that if this was as I said, a consolidating Measure, then why was it in order to have it debated in Stormont. While risking your displeasure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I would merely say that being a small Parliament one allows much wider degrees of latitude in procedure. If any hon. Member wished to discuss the codification of any Measure then it would be—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Member is allowing himself to go out of order in discussing in detail how the Parliament of Stormont operates.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Yes, I confess, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I may be out of order, but I was tempted by the hon. Gentleman opposite. I repeat what I said, that this is in substance a codification Statute, and the fact that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale produced no evidence to dispute the point was, I think—

Mr. M. Foot: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way after he has challenged me three times to say that I could not produce the evidence. The Minister made it clear that it was a very large Measure and said that he would provide hon. Members with details about it. Likewise, he continued by saying that hon. Members might find points of detail in the Bill which could be amended and which would make the law more workable, upon which one hon. Member shouted out "You bet". That does not sound to me as if it were a codification Measure.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. We shall got into difficulties if we proceed on those lines.

Mr. Stratton Mills: With respect, I do not think that the entertaining intervention of the hon. Gentleman has moved me from my essential paint, that this is in large measure a matter of consolidation. If the hon. Gentleman


examines the Statute he will see that this is true. He has produced no con-orate example of any substantial alteration of the law as a result of this Measure.

Mr. M. Foot: When the hon. Gentleman says that there was no substantial change in the law, in many respects, of course, that is true, but the reason is that the majority in the Stormout voted down one Amendment after another.

Mr. Stratton Mills: I am very glad to see that the hon. Gentleman has at last changed his ground on this point.

Mr. Ross: If the hon. Gentleman knows anything about consolidation Measures he will know that they can-not be amended. He will be aware that the Title to the Bill which he is discussing is:
An Act to Consolidate with Amendments
So it is an amended Bill and a new Bill.

Mr. Stratton Mills: I said earlier Chart it was in substance a consolidating Measure, and, if there are any major Amendments, not one of them has been brought out in the debate, and I still stick to my ground on that point.
I make one other point. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale attempted to prove that this was a major change in legislation by—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. This is not the point. Gould the hon. Member direct his remarks to the Regulations that we are now debating?

Mr. Stratton Mills: I confess, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I am falling into my own trap. I am unable, therefore, to answer the point put earlier by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale.
The only other matter was one permitted by Mr. Speaker, when he said that the question could be mentioned as to whether the attachment to the list of —to use his phrase—of a "vicious" electoral law for the Stormont Parliament or local government tainted these Regulations. Interesting allegations have been thrown across the Floor of the House about electoral practice in Northern Ireland. Any statistician worth his keep can always prove what he wishes to. For example, during the war, an Australian Minister said that

tank production there had increased during the previous six months by 100 per cent. An opposition member pointed out in reply that this statement was quite true, but that in the six months prior to that only one tank had been produced while in the current period two tanks were manufactured.
One can use figures to demonstrate virtually anything. The various examples which have been given across the Floor of the House can cancel each other out. The most powerful point of all, Which I ask the hon. Member to remember, is that in the 1959 elections for the Westminster Parliament, held under Statutes passed by this House with boundaries fixed by the Speaker's Conference, Ulster Unionist Members were returned for all twelve Northern Irish seats.
No matter what mathematical confusion the hon. Gentleman may raise, the election demonstrates the political allegiance of Northern Ireland. The continued combination of the electoral registers in one document is a useful administration measure merely continuing present practice, but owing to codification of the previous law it has been necessary to bring in these Regulations, which I welcome.

Mr. M. Foot: Since the hon. Member has paid such tribute to the way in which he and his colleagues are elected to this House, will he say why he does not advocate the same system of elections for local government in Northern Ireland? Why does no member of the Unionist Party in Northern Ireland advocate the same register for local government as there is for this Parliament? There are three registers—a residents' register, a company register and a property register. It is that we are objecting to. Why not one register?

Mr. Stratton Mills: In his constituency the local government register and the Parliamentary register are by no means identical. Admittedly, in Ireland, both North and South, we move at a slightly slower pace in these matters than does this side of St. George's Channel, but he will find that it was only in 1944 that the local government electoral law in this country was altered.

Mr. Foot: It was changed then, indeed. We in this part of the United Kingdom believe in universal suffrage. We believe that it is an extremely important matter. We want to know why the hon. Member, who is content that he should be elected by universal suffrage to this House, should not operate the same principle in local elections in Northern Ireland. Why does he not have the guts to advocate there what he is advocating here?

1.0 a.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: It was interesting to listen to what the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) had to say. Many of us know that under the present circumstances there will always be twelve Unionist Members returned for the twelve seats in this Parliament. We know that the results of the elections are a foregone conclusion, just as they are for the elections behind the Iron Curtain, because the results are manipulated in quite the same way—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. The hon. Member is going further than he is entitled to go in presenting his argument relating to these Regulations.

Mr. Fernyhough: But, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the hon. Member for Belfast North made great play with the fact that twelve Northern Ireland Unionist Members are returned for the twelve seats in this Parliament. Some of us happen to believe that there are special reasons for that. Quite frankly, we think that it is because the same kind of democracy does not prevail in Northern Ireland as prevails in this country. The reason why we are arguing against these Regulations is that they were forced through the Ulster Parliament by the use of the guillotine and the gag. The Ulster Government did not want them discussed or the voice of the minority heard. Some of us believe that that voice has a right to be heard and that if it cannot be heard in Ulster the only other place where it can be heard is in this Parliament which has to sanction Regulations which were bludgeoned through the Stormont

Mr. Walker: How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile that argument with

the fact that in the recent Stormont elections the Labour Party took part and its candidates declared that they would win? There was no complaint then by the Labour Party.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I do not think that the debate should proceed further on that line. I do not see how the question of whether these two lists should continue to be combined can be affected by what the hon. Member is seeking to argue.

Mr. Fernyhough: The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) was trying to enlighten me about what happened to the Labour Party candidates in the recent elections in Ulster—[Interruption] —I am sure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you would call these muttering, unintelligent hon. Gentlemen opposite, if only they would rise from their seats in a courteous manner.

Lieut-Colonel Grosvenor: Will the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Femnyhough) tell the House whether he is referring to the Irish Labour Party or the British Labour Party?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot see how that makes any difference. The question is whether these two lists should continue to be combined. Arguments about the Labour Party in Ireland or the Labour Party in the United Kingdom seem to me to make no difference at all.

Mr. Fernyhough: They make this difference, that because of these electoral registers, because there are votes for property owners and for university people, because there are people whose names are on the registers when they should not be, because there are other people whose names are not on the registers when they should be, we get twelve Unionist Members in this House.

Mr. Stratton Mills: I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that in the Westminster elections the Northern Ireland constituencies are governed by the Representation of the People Act, 1949, and have exactly the same sort of lists and registers as apply in the constituency of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Fernyhough: We have one list—

Mr. Stratton Mills: So do we.

Mr. Fernyhough: No, the hon. Member does not. That is what all the argument is about. That is what these Regulations are about—whether the lists should be combined. All we want to ensure is that the same measure of democracy shall apply in Northern Ireland as in this country. Nobody believes, and nobody ever will believe, that there is the same measure of democracy. People have only to go there and witness what takes place in the elections, the intimidation and victimisation, to know full well that it would not be tolerated here.

Mrs. Patricia McLaughlin: On a point of order. [HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Lady has not heard a word of the debate".] Is it in order for the hon. Member to make remarks about the way in which well governed and orderly elections in Northern Ireland are conducted?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There has been a tendency for the whole debate to get out of order. I hope that it will not continue in this vein.

Mr. Fernyhough: Never in my life have I seen hon. Members so touchy. What have they to hide? What is it they do not want revealed? Why should they be so anxious and concerned? Why do not they take part in the debate and give us the proper picture if the picture we are giving is not the true one? The truth is that they have something to hide. They want to maintain a system which is unfair to the vast majority of people in Ulster. Some of us are determined that, although hon. Members opposite never speak for the minority, we shall raise our voices on every possible occasion.

1.6 a.m.

Mr. Peter Kirk: I intervene in the debate as one who has not only not got a drop of Irish blood but no Scottish or Welsh blood either, I am glad to say. I speak as an Englishman and. therefore, with possibly a more detached view of the whole situation. I am drawn to my feet by the lack of ingenuity of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond). I asked him why it was right to combine the local government and Parliamentary electoral lists in this country but apparently not right to do so in Northern Ireland. He

replied to me that the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland stands at 8 per cent., but in this country it is a good dead less. That is not a very satisfactory answer.

Mr. Manuel: The hon. Gentleman did not see the connection.

Mr. Diamond: What my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has said is probably the right answer. I was trying to make a very simple argument. Perhaps the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) did not hear the whole of it. Under these Regulations it is proposed to continue a certain practice. As this practice has in the past led to certain defects, if we continue it it is likely to lead to defects in the future

Mr. Kirk: That argument does not hold water. The system does not lead to any defects in this part of the United Kingdom. Here the two lists are combined, and the results as regards employment, which is apparently what worries the hon. Member for Gloucester, are excellent. If he is worried about the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland, he should look for a solution elsewhere. It does not lie in opposing the combination of the local government and Parliamentary electoral registers. That argument cannot be followed to any great degree.

Mr. Diamond: I am not aware of any other Regulation on the Order Paper which permits this discussion.

Mr. Kirk: That is why I suggest that the hon. Member is chasing a hare which does not exist. I have studied the Act with great care. When the hon. Member referred to Section 28 he was in fact calling in aid Section 30 and Part III of the First Schedule, relating to certain company qualifications in Northern Ireland. Company qualifications, though admittedly not as extensive as those set out in Part III of the First Schedule, exist under the British electoral law with regard to local government elections.
The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) made an impassioned plea about university votes, but the universities have votes in local government elections in this country. The University of


Oxford returns twelve members to the Oxford City Council. The University of Cambridge returns ten members to the Cambridge City Council—two less, showing that it is a less important university, but otherwise the principle is the same.
I cannot understand why hon. Members opposite suggest that, although the principle which we adopt here of combining the lists is right, it is wrong in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Manuel: Do I take it that in his own constituency the hon. Gentleman would accede to a combined list that cut out a vast number of the people there who now have the right to vote in local elections? That is the crux of the whole question of the combined register.

Mr. Kirk: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has studied with great care Part III of the First Schedule of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962—I have. It does not cut out anyone—[Interruption.] Mr. Deputy-Speaker, a lot of hon. Members opposite complain of those who interrupt them not standing up to do so, but that is what they are doing. I do not object because the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has a louder voice than I, but if he has studied Part III of the First Schedule of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, as I am sure he has, he will have seen that it does not cut out anybody but includes a lot of people—that is all—and a lot of the people in the constituency of Gravesend are included in the local government register. The local government register includes peers of the realm, to which I object, because the only peer of the realm in Gravesend happens to vote for the Labour Party—

Mr. M. Foot: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent the situation. I understand his argument to be that the system of local elections is the same in Northern Ireland as it is here, according to his reading of the Act. I am sure that he would not wish a misrepresentation of that nature to go forward. There is no dispute in Northern Ireland that the system there is different from the system here. If he looks at the Act which he

says he has studied so carefully, he will see that there there are three forms of registration, including company registration and registration on a residential qualification.
Those forms of registration are very different from those in this country, and they do exclude a number of people from voting who would be able to vote under British electoral law. That is not denied by anyone in the Northern Ireland Parliament, but it is defended on the ground that it is quite proper that there should be extra representation for business votes. If anyone reads the debates he will realise that there cannot be any dispute about this. Whether people think it right or wrong, on the facts there cannot be any dispute about that. What happened in this country was that at the end of the war we had our Local Government Act which established universal suffrage in local elections, but for some reason or other that was not done in Northern Ireland—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) to the fact that he has already exhausted his right to make a speech and that only a short intervention is not out of order. The hon. Member was going beyond what the length of an intervention should be.

Mr. Foot: I apologise for the length of the intervention, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) will now agree Chat those are the facts.

Mr. Kirk: With the greatest possible respect to the hon. Member, I cannot see in Sections 28, 29 or 30 of the Act we are now discussing anything that excludes anybody. It is merely that Section 30 includes a lot of people to whom he objects. As I understand it, it is almost more liberal than ours. The primary qualifications in the First Schedule contain a number of things with which I would not necessarily agree—

Mr. Diamond: The hon. Gentleman criticised me for not having read the First Schedule, which I have, but which I interpret differently and, with all deference, I think that my interpretation is the correct one. If the hon. Gentleman


will look at Part III of the First Schedule he will read that:
A person must …on the qualifying date be residing in the area as the occupier of a dwellinghouse, or as the spouse of such an occupier …
That excludes anyone other than the husband and wife in the house. A servant is excluded. That is but one example.

Mr. Kirk: That is going back to the position in this country before the Local Government Act, 1948, but my point is that in England, Scotland Wales we have a number of electoral lists that are combined, and the objection here appears to be to combining lists. That is the only objection. The great plea of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) was that no one would go to the lists to see if he had a local government vote, but the same applies in this country to a peer of the realm. He is not going to know in which constituency he will vote. He may have seven or eight estates and must search the electoral registers to discover where he is registered—in exactly the same way as someone coming under Part III of the Act must search the registers.
For that reason I suggest that a lot of the arguments about unemployment in Northern Ireland, much as we all regret it—although we can be certain that our Northern Ireland colleagues are doing all they can to rectify the position—are beside the point. We are only concerned with the question of whether Northern Ireland should follow the practice operating in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the only point before us, and since the practice works well here I hope that Northern Ireland, in its wisdom, will see fit to follow us.

1.15 a.m.

Mr. Hugh Delargy: I had not intended to speak in this debate. There has been much laughter and frivolity on the part of hon. Members opposite, and we have just heard the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) deliver a cheap, fifth form speech. He is normally so serious. This is, after all, a serious debate, for there is a minority in Northern Ireland who are being badly treated. The Regulations under discussion concern them, and because there is no one here elected from that province to speak on their behalf we must feel indebted to my hon. Friend the

Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) for having spoken up for them. Should the time ever come when no one in this House will stand up and speak on behalf of any minority we might as well pack up and go home.
Meanwhile, all we have had from hon. Members opposite who are supposed to represent these people are sneers and laughter. I can see one hon. Member opposite laughing now. I do not know which constituency he represents. In fact, I do not think I have seen him before. I realise that there are not sufficient hon. Members here tonight successfully to vote on behalf of the people about who I am speaking. If we voted we would be defeated, just as these people in Northern Ireland will be defeated. The result of our defeat would be laughter and sneers from hon. Members opposite. Are they satisfied with that? Are they satisfied, as the hon. Member for Gravesend did, merely to quote this or that Section of an Act? That hon. Member should be ashamed of himself.
How many true Ulster Unionists are in the House at present? I can see three, possibly a fourth—and one of them came in five minutes ago. Another of them sneered when my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) and the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale spoke about certain persons in Northern Ireland having more than one vote. Will one of the Ulster Unionists now present stand up and deny that there are people in Northern Ireland who have more than one vote?
Moments ago there was a lot of laughter and frivolity. Now that I have asked that question there is none. I am waiting for one of them to deny that some people have more than one vote. I will willingly give way if one of them will volunteer. There is no volunteer. They do not care about minorities. Surely I am asking a legitimate question? I should like an answer.

Mr. Stratton Mills: About which elections is the hon. Member speaking? Is he referring to the Westminster or Stormont elections.

Mr. Delargy: For any election; for Westminster or for your rotten rump of a Parliament.

Hon. Members: Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is an improper remark.

Mr. Delargy: I did not understand you correctly, Mr. Speaker. What was improper in the remarks I have used in Parliament, in Westminster?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member used offensive language of another Parliament, and I am sure that he would not wish seriously to continue on that line.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Delargy: I have not been asked by the Chair to withdraw. If Mr. Deputy-Speaker asks me to withdraw, I shall do so. I do not want to.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It would be better if the hon. Member did withdraw.

Mr. Delargy: Simply and solely in response to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I will withdraw. But I repeat, can any Ulster Unionist or anybody else tell me whether or not it is a fact that persons have more than one vote in any election in Northern Ireland? If not here, why should it be so in Ireland? There is great silence from the benches opposite.

1.21 a.m.

Mr. B. T. Parkin: The hon. Member for Graves-end (Mr. Kirk) sought to make a great point out of recommending my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) to look elsewhere for a remedy for the unemployment situation in Northern Ireland than in these Regulations. That struck me as about on a par with one of the more fatuous interjections from the benches opposite when an hon. Member asked if the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) represented the policy of the Labour Party.
What is important to say at the moment is that this document containing these Regulations represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government, presumably, since it has at the end a very important signature—"R. A. Butler, One of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State." Since 6th July he has carried out a consolidation measure of his own, and that is a matter which was not debated at the time, although

perhaps it will be debated tomorrow. He is now the First Secretary of State, but he still retains the general oversight of this problem. The Home Secretary has the responsibility for dealing on our behalf with matters concerning the affairs of Northern Ireland. It is the Home Secretary, not anybody on the other side of the Irish Channel, who has presented us tonight with this document for which he requires the affirmative Resolution of this House. That is why I think it is our duty to stay here and deny that affirmative Resolution, if we can, on the ground so ably indicated by the hon. Member for Gravesend that this is a waste of time.
Whenever I see Northern Ireland mentioned on the Order Paper of the House of Commons I say to myself, "This is it. Now they will introduce the Measure. Now Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State has devised something to deal with these dreadful problems of unemployment and imbalance of industry in Northern Ireland. Now Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State has begun to give to the problems of Northern Ireland some of the intelligent research and careful preparation that are given to the economy of the Common Market. Perhaps we are going to have as lengthy a debate, as substantial a Measure and as important a change in economic policy."

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. It would be better if the hon. Member would confine his speech to what is in fact before us now.

Mr. Parkin: I was about to say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that when I look more carefully I am disappointed. I find that all we are asked to do on this subject is to approve a Motion to implement a Measure which by general consent contains not one item of reform even in the electoral system, let alone in the rest of the matters on which Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State ought to have been exercising his mind. It is rather a long time since this debate started. It is a matter of considerable regret to us all on these benches that the time which is available now under this heading could not have been devoted to something more practical and constructive, and if it were possible I should like to stay here to move


that this Motion be read this day six months. That is the way to treat it. That is how we should treat a trivial piece of legislation introduced on Second Reading which we thought did not meet the situation and was unworthy of Her Majesty's Government. I regard these Regulations as unworthy. I am sorry that the time of the House has been wasted in discussing them. I wish that it were possible to postpone their adoption for six months to give the Government time to introduce a useful and constructive Measure concerned with Northern Ireland. It is for that reason that I have stayed here tonight to oppose these Regulations.

1.25 a.m.

Mr. Archie Manuel: I did not intend to enter the debate, but I feel that I must try to correct the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) who deliberately tried grossly to mislead the House. The hon. Gentleman said that he was familiar with the Act and with the Regulations relating to it, and, in answer to the point which I put to him, he claimed that the same electoral freedom for local government electors obtained in Northern Ireland as obtained in his constituency. The hon. Gentleman regaled the House with his knowledge of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland), 1962, but does he know what is provided in Section 29 (5) of it? That subsection gives the lead to what governs certain aspects of voting in local government elections in Northern Ireland, as the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) knows. I see the hon. Member for Gravesend looking it up now, although he is supposed to know all about it.
We should not tolerate in this country any such provision as is contained in Section 29 (5). I am speaking of local government elections only, and I am not dealing with Parliamentary elections at this point. The subsection provides:
A person registered as a local elector in two or more local government electoral areas may vote at the election of the local authority for each such area notwithstanding that such elections are synchronised.
If a man has property in ten or twelve places, not just eight, he could, despite the synchronising of polling arrangements, vote in all ten or twelve elections. This is a property right of voting which we have discarded.

Mr. Currie: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it relevant to discuss these matters relating to local government in Northern Ireland on the issue before the House?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes, so far as it is relevant to the argument as to whether or not the two lists should continue to be combined.

Mr. Manuel: Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was trying to keep in order and refer to the combination of the lists. I could have brought in the position of companies and so on, tout I was dealing just with the two lists. I accept what the hon. Member for Bedfast, North said about the registration of Parliamentary electors, and I am dealing only with the combination of the lists.
There is no hon. Member opposite, no matter where he comes from or what constituency he represents, who would justify such a state of affairs as is permitted by the subsection which I have read out. I am gravely disturbed that the hon. Member for Gravesend should have tried so grossly to mislead the House, saying that he had knowledge of the Act and asserting that the situation in his own constituency was the same as is provided therein.

Mr. Kirk: What I said was that the lists in my constituency have been combined as they are in Northern Ireland. That is so. The hon. Gentleman cannot deny it. It is true in his constituency, too.

Mr. Manuel: I do not want to be unkind about this, but I intervened during hon. Member's speech and asked whether he suggested that the provisions governing local elections in his constituency were the same as those in Northern Ireland. He replied to that question, and that is what he must answer for now.

Mr. Kirk: HANSARD will show.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could help me on this question. In England, if one has property in one town and property in another town, can one vote in both?

Mr. Delargy: Of course not.

Mr. Manuel: The 1948 Act, passed by the Labour Government, altered all that. Advantage used to be taken of


that position. A person now has to declare in which local government area he will record his vote. Surely, everybody knows this.

Mr. Delargy: The hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) does not.

Mr. Manuel: Therefore, a person has only one vote.

1.30 a.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I do not think that when the Minister moved the adoption of the Regulations he could have imagined that they would lead to such a prolonged and interesting debate, lasting over two hours. I cannot help feeling that if the debate has taken far longer than the Minister expected and has proved more controversial, to some extent he has only himself to blame.
The Minister was at fault when, in his opening remarks, he referred to the Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament as being a consolidating Measure. Quite obviously, it was much more than a consolidating Measure in the sense in which we understand that term here. It was an Act of the Northern Ireland Parliament which probably codified the law and made a number of amendments and changes in the existing law and, as we have heard, involved a great deal of controversy. Part of this debate has been due to the fact that the Minister rather suggested to the House that the Statutory Instrument that we are considering was merely the result of a consolidating Measure in Northern Ireland, which it is not.
The debate has at least shown to the Minister what depth of feeling there is in this House with regard to affairs in Northern Ireland which has enabled the House, when an opportunity arises within the rules of order, to give vent to its dissatisfaction with so many things that are occurring in Northern Ireland. It has also been significant that we have had such noisy interjections from those Members from Northern Ireland who sit on the benches opposite.
On the merits of the Regulations, the Minister will now probably realise that he has not made a very convincing case for them. Looking back, I hope he will realise that he has not said anything to

convince the House that there is any merit in our agreeing that there should be a combined list with regard to the franchise both for the Northern Ireland Parliament and for this Parliament.
It appears that there are such wide discrepancies between our ideas of what a proper franchise and a proper democratic system should be and the ideas that prevail in Northern Ireland that there are considerable objections and inconveniences in having a combined list. On reflection, therefore, the Minister may well come to the conclusion that it would be much better, in the interests of ail concerned, that there should be a separate list for the electoral roll under which Members are elected to Parliament at Westminster under a system of franchise which we recognise and know and have evolved over the centuries into a basis of universal franchise as compared with what appears to us to be a totally different franchise system operating in Northern Ireland, where, it would appear, for various reasons some people have no votes and others may have six, seven or even eight votes. If this is the fact—and it has not been seriously disputed—I cannot for the life of me see what is the advantage in continuing to combine the registers.
I should have thought it, in those circumstances, a most inconvenient arrangement, and if there is objection to that in this House, not having what we would regard as the normal democratic register based on a sensible franchise, but mixed up with some other register, which may suit Northern Ireland—or the majority in Northern Ireland; it does not suit the minority who are not represented here, and so cannot speak for themselves—I would think that the Minister might well think, in view of the attacks made in this debate on the Electoral Law Act of Northern Ireland—which attacks are as nothing to the attacks made on the Act in the Parliament of Northern Ireland— that it is not very sensible to ask this House to allow a register on which Members are sent here to be mixed up with some other register which we do not understand and which, apparently, the Minister did not understand when he proposed this Motion to the House. He thought that it was based upon some consolidating Measure in Northern


Ireland and was merely restating the existing law without any controversy or any objection.
Now we know the facts are so totally different, and as I understand there cannot be any urgency about the matter, I would suggest to the Minister that he may think it worth while to withdraw this Motion so that he and the Principal Secretary of State—as he was: he is even more so now, I understand—can consider what action should be taken.

1.37 a.m.

Mr. Woodhouse: With the leave of the House to reply briefly to the debate, I can assure the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) that the course of the debate was by no means so different from what I had imagined. Although this is the first time I had appeared at this Dispatch Box on matters affecting Northern Ireland, I am not a complete novice in the affairs of Northern Ireland, and I have listened to the discussion with the same profound interest with which I listen to all discussions on all matters concerned with Ireland whether North or South. Having for the last seventeen years now had my second home on the Border—and at the risk of being accused of gerrymandering I will not say on which side of the Border—the affairs of Ireland have occupied my mind a good deal of time, and I did not come to this debate so entirely unprepared as hon. Members may have thought.
I do not think it true to suggest I misled the House in referring to the Act in question as a consolidating Measure. I did not, of course, mean that it was a purely scissors and paste document in Which every single word came directly out of a previous Act. It is a consolidating Measure with amendments, and that is how it is described in the Preamble to the Act. In this debate a vast and fascinating range of subjects has been dealt with—fascinating to me and, I hope, fascinating to other Members—but I do not think the House would seriously wish me by way of reply to re-enact the debates in Stormont at

an earlier date, or to venture into a debate on what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) called the whole democratic structure of Northern Ireland. I think that that would certainly be ruled out of Order.
So far as this House is concerned, it is true, as I said at the beginning, that we are concerned with a narrow point. It has been widened in debate, but fundamentally it is a narrow issue, and that is whether or not we are to continue with the practice which was in use before the 1962 Act—in other words, since 1950—of combining these registers about which we have been debating. I feel bound to say that nothing I have heard in the debate, interesting though it was, has persuaded me that the defects of the registers, if any—

Mr. Manuel: If any?

Mr. Woodhouse: I leave that an open question—follow in any way from the practice of combining them, or that those defects would be removed by separating them. I would therefore ask the House to approve the Regulations.

Mr. Fernyhough: Would the hon. Gentleman just comment on Regulation 24?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member will require the leave of the House to speak again.

Mr. Fernyhough: I should like the hon. Gentleman to comment on Regulation 24, which deals with illegal practices.

Question put:—

The House proceeded to a Division:— Mr. CHICHESTER-CLARK and Mr. MCLAREN were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

Resolved,
That the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 1962, dated 6th July 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12th July, be approved.

GAS AND ELECTRICITY BOARDS (RATING AND VALUATION)

1.48 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): I beg to move,
That the Gas Boards (Rateable Values) Order, 1962, dated 20th July 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd July, be approved.
I should perhaps explain that an Order relating to Gas Boards was made on 9th July, but, unfortunately, a printing error was discovered and it had to be withdrawn. Hence the new Order laid on 20th July. I regret that the error was overlooked and hope that this late substitution of a new Order has not caused hon. Members any inconvenience. I sincerely apologise, particularly to the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart), if that has been the case.
This Order and the following Order are made necessary by the general revaluation for rating purposes which takes effect next April. The basis of rating of the electricity and gas undertakings is somewhat involved, and I do not imagine that the House would wish me to go into great detail at this time of night. But the starting point is the basic totals of rateable values which were based on the total rateable values before nationalisation. There is a statutory formula by which the rateable values are adjusted annually on the basis of production and consumption. However, this only takes account of the sort of increase in rateable values which is equivalent to the increase which occurs in a factory when it is extended. It does not make any provision for the increase of rents taken into account by the quinquennial or other periodical reviews of the rating assessments of the country as a whole.
For other types of property, of course, these changes in rental levels are reflected in the new values determined by these reviews. Without an increase in their basic totals, the level of the rateable values for electricity and gas would progressively fall behind the rateable value of other property and would bear a steadily decreasing share of the rate burden throughout the country. These Orders have the effect in both cases of increasing the valuation by about 87·6

per cent. This figure is taken because this is the expected rate of increase in the net annual values for the most comparable property, that is, the commercial class—shops, offices and the like.
The reason why houses have been excluded from the factor is that they are being raised from 1939 values to current values whereas gas and electricity were brought up to 1956 levels in 1957. Industry and freight-transport have been excluded because it is thought that the fact that they are to lose their 50 per cent. derating may result in a lot of appeals on the ground that this will reduce rental value. It is felt in the case of gas and electricity that it would be wise to tie them to something more certain than to industry, which may have a large number of appeals. If these resulted in reductions of rateable value it would be necessary to provide in the Orders, out of fairness to the industries, for a review of the rate of increase for electricity and gas.
I would add that consultations have taken place with the associations of local authorities, with the London County Council and with the Gas Council and the Electricity Council. I think it fair to claim that a broad measure of agreement has been reached. Perhaps not unnaturally the associations of local authorities have taken the view that the basic totals should be higher and the Gas and Electricity Councils have taken the view that they should be lower. But, broadly speaking, this is a compromise and I think that both sides are now reasonably reconciled to the Government's conclusion as to the basis on which the present adjustments are made.
Therefore, I commend the Orders to the House. The adjustment is calculated from the same range of property as is the adjustment in 1963 of water rateable values for which the House made specific statutory provision last year in the Rating and Valuation Act, 1961. I invite the House to approve the two Orders.

1.50 a.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I am sure the House will be glad to accept the Government's apologies for the misprint in the first version of the Order concerning the gas industry, and I think that we may safely assume that few, if


any, hon. Members were seriously inconvenienced by it. I think that we must also say that the result achieved in these Orders, the figure arrived at, is presumably a just figure.
It is an extremely complicated matter. To get this result, no doubt people have laboured very diligently and probably got very little thanks for it. One may well ask, "Is there much in this except transferring money from one public pocket to another?" If we charge the gas and electricity undertakings more rates than they really ought to be charged, that may result in the consumers of gas, and electricity having to pay more for gas and electricity than they would otherwise pay. On the other hand, the consumers pay less rates. The reason that it maters, of course, is that gas and electricity undertakings vary greatly from one local authority to another and if we did not get this matter right we might inflict a measurable injustice on certain local authorities.
I expect that hon. Members will have noted that they have not received in their post abundant representations either from the local authorities or from the gas or electricity undertakings either for or against these Orders. I think we may conclude from that silence that the compromise has produced at least an equality of dissatisfaction between the bodies concerned. So I do not think we need spend any great period of time in arguing about the actual amounts involved. We may conclude that the Orders embody a reasonable judgment as to what is fair.
But there is one question I want to raise. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that the actual amounts of the basic rateable value of the gas and electricity undertakings are being increased by 87·6 per cent., and that that is based on a calculation of what will happen to like properties as a result of revaluation. A calculation of that kind has a great many unknowns in it. How one can be so sure that that it is going to be 87·6 per cent. and not the crude approximate of seven-eights, I do not know. I do not see how one can possibly foretell that with a degree of certaintly. However, that is the figure which has been arrived at.
We were given in the White Paper on Revaluation for Rates a calculation

about what would happen to various classes of ratepayers, and we were told that domestic ratepayers would find that their properties would be revalued at a figure four times their present value. Thus, if one had a house property which before revaluation was rated at £100, after revaluation it would be rated at £400.
We were further told that, despite that, the amount that the domestic ratepayer would actually have to pay to the local authority would be substantially the same. His assessment would be quadrupled, but the actual amount he would have to pay would remain the same. I think it follows, if this is so, that the total value of all rateable property surely must also be quadrupled. The domestic ratepayer's property is quadrupled in value, but his share of the total to be paid remains the same. That must mean, therefore, that all rateable property of all kinds, taken as a lump, will have their values quadrupled.
Rateable properties fall for this purpose into three groups: domestic, industrial, and the rest. Domestic is being quadrupled while the rest, of which these gas and electricity undertakings are part, is being almost doubled, at one-and-seven-eighths. It would seem to follow that the share of industry must go up considerably. It is a little difficult to reconcile this figure of 87·6 per cent. as an index for commercial, etc., properties with the figures earlier given in the White Paper. Therefore, it might be wise if, when we know a little more exactly what is going to happen, the Government publish a statement telling us what has happened, both in percentages and in figures, to domestic properties, industrial properties, and commercial properties. On the evidence which we have at the moment, it looks as if the share of the total rate burden which will fall on industry will be markedly increased. The domestic ratepayer is not to pay a larger share as a whole, and the kind of properties with which we are now concerned will pay a substantially lesser share. The increase in the industrial share would appear to be larger than anyone had previously predicted. I hope therefore that at a convenient time the Government will be able


to give further and more precise information about how the rate burden is to be shared by the different classes of ratepayer.

1.56 a.m.

Mr. Corfield: With the permission of the House, I will reply to the hon. Gentleman who is, I think, a little out with his arithmetic, although I should hate to become involved in an argument with him at this time of night. We are up against the problem that the four times factor came from the comparison in the White Paper of the gross value of houses in the 1934 lists and not their 1939 values. This complicates the issue in one sense. The industrial figure is complicated by industrial rerating so that there is not an exact parallel. The commercial figures are complicated by the loss of the 20 per cent. derating. I am advised that the expected increase in house assessments is 166 per cent., which is not quite as far from the figure we are discussing with regard to the Gas Board. I will see what can be done about a statement of what actually happens rather than a forecast. No doubt the hon. Gentleman is familiar with the table in the White Paper which forecasts that industry's share of rates will be up by about 43 per cent.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Gas Boards (Rateable Values) Order, 1962, dated 20th July, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd July, be approved.

Electricity Boards (Rateable Values) Order, 1962, dated 9th July, 1962 [copy laid before the House 12th July], approved.—[Mr. Corfield.]

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (SOUTH AFRICA)

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (South Africa) Order, 1962, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 27th June.—[Mr. Barber.]

1.58 a.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) who, as the House knows, takes a great interest in these matters, has asked me to say that, unfortunately and unexpectedly, he has had to leave the Chamber before this Motion came up for discussion.
As I understand it, this Agreement flows from the fact that South Africa has withdrawn from the Commonwealth and broadly follows the pattern of double taxation relief Agreements made in respect of other countries. There is only one point which my right hon. and learned Friend asked me to raise. It relates to Article 20 the terms of which would seem to call for some explanation. Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to explain the precise intention of the Article.

1.59 a.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): As the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) has explained, this Agreement arises from the fact that South Africa has left the Commonwealth. In many respects it is similar to other Agreements which we have previously negotiated. Article XX, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, is one of the most important articles in the Agreement. Perhaps I may take it, as it were, line by line, and explain exactly how it works. Paragraph (1) is concerned with the provision of relief for a resident in the United Kingdom in respect of South African tax which is paid on South African shares. Paragraph (2) deals with the converse case where United Kingdom Income Tax is suffered by a resident of South Africa in respect of income derived from United Kingdom sources and provides for relief from South African tax, which is given by way of credit.
Paragraph (1) begins in this way:
Subject to the provisions of the law of the United Kingdom regarding the allowance as a credit against United Kingdom tax of tax payable in a territory outside the United Kingdom".
This proviso refers simply to the Sixteenth Schedule of the Income Tax Act, 1952, which sets out the way any credit which is due is to be calculated.
Paragraph (1) continues:
South African tax payable, whether directly or by deduction"—
I think that we all understand the two ways in which the tax is levied—
in respect of income from sources within South Africa shall be allowed as a credit against any United Kingdom tax payable in respect of that income.
This means that credit will be given in the United Kingdom in respect of South African tax which is paid in connection with the dividend; in other words, South African tax which is levied either by deduction or which is assessed directly and which is directly concerned with the dividend itself, as opposed to what is known as underlying tax, which is tax payable in respect of the profits of a company which is not directly related to the payment of a dividend.
The relief for underlying tax is provided for in the second part of paragraph (1), which reads:
Where such income is an ordinary dividend paid by a company which is a resident of South Africa, the credit shall take into account (in addition to any South African tax appropriate to the dividend) the South African tax payable by the company in respect of its profits".
In other words, if the South African company has paid tax in respect of its profits and later pays a dividend to a United Kingdom shareholder, the United Kingdom shareholder will get relief, not only in respect of the tax paid directly because he has received a dividend, but he will also receive relief in respect of the tax paid by the company, paid perhaps regardless of the fact that a dividend is being paid.
Then there is provision to deal with participating preference shares and,

broadly speaking, that provision is simply to the effect that, where there is a participating preference share and, in addition to that fixed rate of interest, a share of profits is paid, any additional interest in respect of the share of profits is to be treated in the same way as a dividend paid on an ordinary share.
In paragraph (2), which deals with the converse case where United Kingdom tax is payable in respect of a dividend, provision is made for relief from South African tax. I should mention in passing that, as I understand it, at present South Africa does not levy tax on a dividend accruing to a resident in South Africa from a source outside South Africa. Consequently, at present this paragraph will not be of any great value, but it could be of value in the future because, if South Africa were to change her law and levy tax in respect of income accruing from a source outside South Africa, relief would be given, and would have to be given, by virtue of this paragraph.
The only other point that perhaps I should mention is the proviso at the end of the paragraph, which refers to what is known as "third country" tax; in other words, to the case where the United Kingdom company has already had relief from United Kingdom tax in respect of tax paid in a third country. The proviso simply says that if South Africa has to give relief from tax in respect of the tax paid on a United Kingdom dividend, that South African relief is to be limited by reference to the net United Kingdom rate borne by the company. I think that that is a perfectly reasonable way of proceeding. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman does not wish me to refer to the third paragraph which, although it all comes under Article 20, really refers to another matter.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (South Africa) Order, 1962, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 27th June.

MILK (PRICE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Batsford.]

2.6 a.m.

Mr. John Brewis: I suppose that in my constituency I represent as many milk producers as does any other hon. Member. Galloway produces about one-fifth of all the milk produced in the Scottish Milk Marketing Board area, but the number of those interested in the price of milk is far greater, as sales of milk represent a quarter of the income of the British agricultural community.
In 1939, before the war, the price of milk in (the United Kingdom was 3⅜d. a pint. If everything has since gone up in general by three times, the price should now be at least 10d. a pint, compared with the present actual price of 8½d. Let me at once say that there may be valid social reasons why the price should be kept down for the needy— milk is a valuable food—but Britain is an affluent society and not living in a sort of soup kitchen economy. Before the war, it took the average worker 11¾ minutes of work to pay for a pint of milk; today it takes him only 6¼ minutes.
From the producers' point of view, controlling the price of milk at an artificially low price is unfair. There are two main reasons quoted against raising the price of milk. The first is that consumption would fall. There is, however, no evidence that this is correct. The Report of the National Food Survey Committee in 1958 stated:
During the five years 1954–58 domestic consumption of liquid milk was remarkably stable. Increases of ½d. per pint in the maximum retail price in July, 1956, and January, 1957, had little effect on consumption. Indeed. when the retail price of milk was at its highest during the early months of 1957, purchases were also high.
The second reason is that dairy farmers would increase their milking herd. Again, there is no evidence of this. The increased flow of milk is due, in the main, to increased efficiency. Milk yields went up from 689 gallons per cow in 1955 to 762 gallons in 1961—of course, the yields in Galloway are far higher than this—while the number of

cows decreased from 303,990 to 300,859. The increase last year was mainly due to poor grading prices for old cows and the dairy farmers' fear of the Government introducing a quota system which would require, in the farmers' own interests, a big output of milk in 1961. I can hazard a guess that milk production in the first half of 1962 is well below the Government forecast at the time of the Price Review.
There is also a debating point; that the price of milk in the Common Market is likely to be lower than the present price in Britain. Does the Under-Secretary agree that milk in Britain is produced under different conditions to the Continent of Europe? We produce high grade milk all the year round for liquid consumption, while most of the Six produce seasonal milk for cheese and butter making. There is no importation of liquid milk, and it seems probable that the domestic price of liquid milk will be unaffected whether or not we enter the Common Market. If there were importation of liquid or frozen milk, Denmark would be our competitor and the Danes, who are our partners in E.F.T.A., could at present send us milk at any time they liked if that were technically possible.
I return to the effect of the low price of milk on dairy farmers. If we take 1955 as the base year, agricultural wages have gone up from 100 to 138, rent to 137—and both are still rising—the cost of living to 122, while the producers' price of milk has gone down to 91. If, so to speak, we stop the moving staircase of inflation and call the cost of living 100, the price of milk is, in comparison, 74 in real terms today or, in other words, the dairy farmer has had a drop in his returns of over a quarter.
The requirement of the Agriculture Act, 1957, that no review commodity price will sink more than 9 per cent. in three years has been met technically, but can the Under-Secretary justify this quotation from the 1960 White Paper on Agriculture:
The Government and the Unions agree that as the industry strengthens its competitive power and so advances towards its declared objective of reducing Exchequer support to the minimum, it is right and proper that it should have the incentive and reward of an increase in its living standards.


Let me put it on record that as from September the dairy industry has so increased its competitive power that no Exchequer subsidy will be required. In the countries of the Six there is an Exchequer subsidy varying from 3d. to 7d. a gallon.
In a recent debate I gave some figures foam the National Farmers' Union accounts scheme of a cross-section of 478 dairy farms of between 50 and 150 acres. The profit for a 100 acre family farm, after deducting interest on capital, was about only £8 a week for a 7-day a week all the year round job. If the Undersecretary is going to remove the £7 an acre ploughing grant the profit will be reduced by £100 a year to an utterly absurd figure. How does the Undersecretary square this treatment with this quotation from the 1960 White Paper:
The Government and the Unions agree that the essential point is to ensure a reasonable return for the labour of the farmer and his wife and for his management and interest on the capital he has invested.
Let me leave the Under-Secretary in no doubt that the dairy farmers in my constituency are extremely dissatisfied with the Government's policy. We expect him, to do something to improve the position of the dairy farmer, particularly the small one. If he does not I predict that there will be one result; farmers will give up the laborious job of milking cows and the Government will have to consider ways of restricting barley production because both the guaranteed price and the Common Market target price for barley are a far better proposition for these farmers.
It would be a great pity if our milk production was restricted. Milk is one of the key commodities for feeding the world's hungry millions. Some must have rice rather than corn, others will not eat beef—but milk is in universal demand and can be produced commercially only in the temperate zones of the world. I was glad to see exports of dried milk up in 1961, by over 25 per cent. in the last five years, but the total of just over £2 million is disappointing. Is enough being done to encourage exports and the distribution of milk products? I am told that our efforts do not compare favourably with those of 1ihe Danes.

2.15 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Lebura): My hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) has argued persuasively tonight the case for improving the lot of the dairy farmer. I think we would all agree with him that milk production plays a most important part in our agricultural economy and one which particularly affects (the man on the small farm and the medium sized farm.
These are facts which the Government have always kept in mind in dealing with the question of milk production and my hon. Emend has put forward the case tonight very clearly. But I would suggest to town that the solution that he proposes for this difficult problem is not really the right one and that if adapted it would only make matters worse.
My hon. Friend was good enough to forewarn me that he intended to take this opportunity of developing the arguments which he was able to touch on only briefly in his speech during the Scottish Estimates debate. I have listened carefully to the arguments which he has put forward tonight and I shall answer as best I can the points which he has raised.
First, I should like to say a word or two on the profitability of dairy forms. It is, of course, rather difficult to deal with the current level of profitability since adequate data on net income is normally available only for the preceding year. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that in considering the question of profitability the Government can only readily look at the results of the industry as a whole.
Net income from dairy farms in general appears to have been fairly well maintained in 1960–61 and indeed has been relatively stable over the last few years. This is true both for the United Kingdom and also for Scotland where, as my hon. Friend knows, the average size of the herd tends to be somewhat larger. That is the broad picture.
I would, however, take the point made by my hon. Friend that what concerns him is that in real terms the return to dairy farmers, and particularly the small producer, has not kept stop with other values. But it seems to me that the root cause of this lies in the very nature of


the problem that we are here discussing this evening.
What is the basic problem facing the dairy farmer? In the words of the 1962 White Paper, it is that
output of milk continues to increase both because of the increasing size of the dairy herd and the upward trend of milk yields.
This fact, as the White Paper points out, is leading to
a continued reduction in the pool price per gallon actually received by farmers so long as milk producers taken as a whole continue to increase production above the standard quantity.
The fact is that about two-thirds of the milk produced in this country goes for liquid consumption and one-third into the manufacturing market. In the Government's view, therefore, the scope for expansion of milk production, as with some other commodities, must be directly related to the ability of producers to expand the size of these markets and to do so profitably. This is what the Government have tried to impress on producers for a number of years past. At present, milk production is increasing at the remarkable rate of about 100 million gallons a year.
In normal circumstances, this would, no doubt, be a matter for considerable satisfaction; but we cannot really take credit for a situation where only about one-fifth of this additional gallonage is being absorbed by the liquid market, and this only after much energetic salesmanship by the Boards. The remaining four-fifths must, of course, be diverted to the lower-priced manufacturing market.
We have to face the fact that, in the four years up to 1962–63 alone, the increase in the amount of milk going for manufacturing as opposed to liquid consumption will have been about 300 million gallons. This presents increasing difficulties for the manufacturing industry in finding the capacity for processing the surplus and, perhaps more important, it tends to aggravate the problems arising in the markets for milk products.
Much more significant from the producer's point of view is the effect of this surplus production on the pool price paid to individual producers by the Boards. Milk which has to be sent for manufacture normally realises an average price to the Boards of about 1s. 5d.

to 1s. 6d. per gallon. There are not many producers who can produce milk for this sort of market and at the same time hope to show a profit. This harsh fact tends to be concealed from the producer who manages to maintain or increase the amount of his monthly milk cheque by increasing production so as to offset the reduction in the pool price, but it is all too apparent in the economy of the industry as a whole. I doubt that it is fully realised that, while there has been a small net increase of 0·15d. per gallon in the guaranteed price since 1958–59, the pool price paid to the producers has fallen by about 3½d. a gallon over the same period. I think that this demonstrates quite clearly that the factors affecting the producer's return are largely outside the Government's field of action.
I can readily sympathise with the producer who sees no future in this sort of policy of ever-expanding production without regard to the overall consequences for the industry. I can well understand his reaction to this situation. He must feel, quite naturally, that the extra gallonage is being produced largely at his expense; and, if I read my farming Press aright, there are many producers who think that the time has come to call a halt.
It is often argued, of course, that a reduction in the producer's return, whether as a result of a lower guaranteed price or some other cause, tends to induce farmers to step up production either by adding more cows to the herd or by giving extra feeding in order to increase the yield of milk and so maintain the same level of gross income. That may to some extent be true. Nevertheless, in my opinion, it would be a highly fallacious deduction to suggest that this trend would be reversed by giving the producer a higher price. My own view is that there cannot be the slightest doubt that an increase in the guaranteed price would lead very quickly to a further upsurge of production. The result of this could well be that any benefit which the producer would supposedly get from the higher guaranteed price would be nullified. Certainly, the economy and well being of the industry as a whole would derive no benefit from such a policy.
There are, however, other considerations to be taken into account apart


from the effect that an increase in the guaranteed price would have on production. My hon. Friend suggests that the improvement in the producer's position would be brought about by increasing the price of milk to the consumer. Perhaps I should explain very briefly the basis on which the retail price of milk is determined. Until this year, the consumer was expected to bear the cost of the milk supplied to the liquid market, at the guaranteed price plus the cost of distribution, and also the loss entailed in manufacturing a reserve of milk, equal to about 20 per cent. of Liquid consumption, that has to be maintained to ensure that the liquid market is kept adequately supplied throughout the year.

Mr. Brewis: Is my hon. Friend aware that the remuneration of a milk distributor has gone up by something like 50 per cent. in the last six years?

Mr. Leburn: That may well be, but the distributor is not responsible for the increase in production of milk.
The House will recall, however, that earlier this year my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, when announcing the Government's determinations after the 1962 Price Review, also announced that in future the retail price could be so fixed as to cover the full cost of the guarantee to the producer. The effect, taking one year with another, would be that no charge for this would fall on the Exchequer.
These new arrangements mean, therefore, that from this year the consumer is being asked to pay rather more for a pint of milk than previously in order that the guarantee to the producer should be met in whole from the retail price. In paying this 'higher price, the consumer is already having to bear what some people might regard as an undue share of the manufacturing element. It would surely, therefore, be most unfair to go beyond that and expect the consumer not merely to meet the guarantee, but to pay a still higher price for milk in order to cushion the producer against the consequences of producing yet more milk than the market can absorb at anything like the present level of production costs.
In that connection, might I make clear, in view of what my hon. Friend has said,

that the absence of any Exchequer subsidy on milk from this year is solely due to this adjustment of the method of fixing the retail price and not to any other factor. As I have indicated, I do not think that an increase in the guaranteed price would stabilise or reverse the present continuing trend towards greater milk production. To maintain the milk producers' returns over a period, the process would have to be repeated and would, as I see it, be self-defeating. In view of what I have said, I cannot agree with my hon. Friend's view that the price of milk As being controlled at an artificially low level, nor do I think that consumption would remain stable if the prices were to go on increasing in this way. The boards are doing an excellent job, with the full encouragement of the Government, in seeking to increase liquid sales. It would be unfortunate if these efforts were to be nullified by increasing consumer resistance that would be likely to follow from the adoption of the policy which my hon. Friend has in mind.
The Government recognise that this is a complex and difficult problem. I have a great deal of sympathy with what has been said from time to time about the difficulties of running a dairy farm. Few farmers in other sectors of the agricultural community have to put in the same long hours and be so tied to their holdings as has the small dairy farmer. In these days when most people value their spare time, this becomes an increasingly heavy burden. My hon. Friend has drawn attention to these difficulties. I have tried to show that their solution must be found from within the industry itself.
Last year, the Government suggested to the representatives of the industry that thought should be given to devising a modification of the pool price arrangements, which undoubtedly tend to obscure from producers the consequences of over-production. Although their examination of these difficulties did not, unfortunately, throw up any satisfactory or workable alternative arrangement, the unions and the boards have agreed with the Government that the general problems require continuing attention. I hope that continuing attention will be given.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Two o'clock, a.m.